The Last Embrace by Pam Jenoff Page A

the lack of a passion that stirred him to trouble.
    â€œI’m worried about Liam,” Jack confided when we reached the room he and his twin shared.
    â€œYou should be. He’s gone from school more often than he’s there and those kids he hangs out with are awful. We have to do something.”
    â€œLike what?”
    I searched for an answer. Liam wouldn’t listen to us. Telling the Connallys and getting him in further trouble would only make things worse. “I’ll be right back.”
    I raced downstairs and outside after Charlie, who had changed into his practice jersey and was climbing on his bike, shoulder pads slung over the handlebars. He turned and my breath caught, as it always did when he was near. “What is it, Ad?” he asked. “I’ve got to practice.” But his eyes were soft, his voice warm. What would he do if I kissed him right now?
    â€œI’m worried about Liam.” He cocked his head, not following. How could he not have noticed? “He’s missing school a lot.”
    â€œHe’s always been a wild kid, Addie. He just loves to give Mom and Dad the business.”
    â€œBut it’s different now. He could be drinking.” Though I had not seen Liam with beer or liquor, I knew from conversations I’d overheard at school that some of the wilder kids drank. “Or worse.”
    â€œIt’s a phase. He’ll get over it.”
    â€œWhat if he doesn’t?” I pressed.
    Charlie’s brow wrinkled fleetingly. “I’ll talk to him, I promise. But right now I’ve got to get to practice.” He rose up on the pedals and started forward. “Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder as he pedaled away, his voice fading in the wind. Longing tugged at my stomach. If only he would see what was going on with Liam. If only he would see me.
    I started back through the living room toward the stairs. “Addie,” Robbie called in a stage whisper, though no one else was around to see or hear. His head stuck out from a doorway beneath the stairs. He’d first shown me his secret hiding place in early fall, waving me in from the dining room during one of my visits while the others were busy debating the Lend-Lease Act to a small door that I had always assumed was a broom closet. I lowered my head and peered inside. “Come in,” he’d urged. The tiny space with its low ceiling was barely big enough for the two of us, but he had decorated it with photos and pictures he had done at school and put two pillows on the floor. I’d squeezed onto one of them. “My hideaway.” I understood. The house was so overrun, two boys to a bedroom, noise in every corner. This was the one place he could call his own. “No one else knows,” he’d whispered. Though quite sure his mother did, I nodded solemnly, flattered that I was the one with whom he had shared his secret.
    I hesitated as he waved me in now; Jack was waiting for me upstairs to finish homework. But I slid into the closet and Robbie curled up under the crook of my arm in a way he surely would not do for much longer.
    â€œLook,” he said, pointing to the sloped ceiling of the closet. He’d stretched black paper across it and in white he’d sketched the stars, trying to replicate the constellations. “I don’t have them quite right,” he fretted. I imagined how he’d worked on the design, biting his lip with grim concentration as he tried to get the positioning of the stars just right.
    â€œYou should ask Liam.” Last summer at the beach, Liam was forever pointing out the different patterns of stars visible in the night sky. His eyes would light up as he explained a particular constellation; it was the closest I’d seen him to taking an interest in something.
    â€œHe’s never around anymore.” Robbie’s words were a refrain of my earlier conversations with Jack and Charlie. Even