Free Hope and Other Luxuries by Clare B. Dunkle Page B

train. I waved, and they spotted me, but their faces didn’t light up. Valerie’s expression was distant and guarded, as though she were thinking private thoughts. Elena’s looked like a thundercloud. She looked furious.
    Uh-oh. Something must have happened on the train.
    The girls were quiet on the walk to the parking lot. I was surprised at Elena’s reserve. She usually had trouble getting a polite distance away from a crisis before she started filling me in on the details. But there it was—she was growing up and learning discretion. There would be no more comments about
that man over there
while he was still within earshot.
    As soon as we get to the car
, I thought,
she’s going to launch in and tell me all about it
.
    But Elena didn’t. She put her suitcase into the trunk and sat down in silence. I pulled out of the parking space, and we made our way into traffic.
    No stories. No chatter. No nothing.
    I glanced in the rearview mirror. Each girl was staring out her side window, with no particular expression on her face. Had they beenfighting? Maybe. But even if they were having an argument, silence wasn’t their style. Toe-to-toe shouting matches: that was more what I was used to from them.
    â€œIs everything okay?” I asked.
    â€œOh, sure,” Valerie said.
    â€œWhy shouldn’t it be?” said Elena.
    â€œIt’s just that you’re both so quiet.”
    A long pause.
    I glanced in the mirror again. Valerie was staring at the back of the seat in front of her. Elena was glaring at the world outside her window and chewing on her bottom lip.
    â€œEverything’s okay, Mom,” Valerie said in the same calm, patient tone of voice I had once used to soothe frightened preschoolers. I knew what that tone meant. It didn’t mean things were okay. It only meant that she didn’t like to see me worry.
    â€œElena, how was your birthday?” I asked next. Elena had had her fourteenth birthday a couple of weeks before. It still seemed strange to me to have the girls gone on big days like that.
    I was sure that this question would break through Elena’s bad mood. She had given me extensive rundowns of school birthday parties in the past. Germans love birthdays, and I was sure that the girls had gone all out to make hers special.
    But today, Elena only shrugged. She said, “It was okay.”
    â€œOh . . . Well, I’ve got a cake ready for you at home. We’re going to have our own celebration.”
    I waited, but Elena didn’t respond. Valerie spoke instead. “That’s nice, Mom.”
    Puzzled and worried, I lapsed into silence, too. We were back on the highway now, climbing up the tall, steep cliffs that closed in the Mosel River valley. Two thousand years ago, the Romans had planted these dizzying slopes with grapevines. The Romans were gone, but the grapevines were still there.
    â€œSo . . . ,” I said. “So . . . What’s new at school these days?”
    Another pause. Then Valerie spoke up. “It’s about the same.”
    â€œElena? What about you? What’s new for you this year?”
    One word from Elena: “Nothing.”
    Nothing?
Nothing?
Six weeks of new experiences, and that was all she had to say? This bubbly, sparkly chatterbox, who could turn a ten-minute trip to the store with her father into twenty minutes’ worth of stories for me?
    â€œYou’re sure nothing’s happened? Not a single thing has happened?” I prodded, trying to joke. “Come on! Don’t you have any stories for me?”
    Valerie spoke up then. She volunteered a few observations about how her new classes were going. But what I heard from Elena was . . . nothing.
    Elena was sick, I decided. That must be it. She was getting sick. She just didn’t feel good. So, half an hour later, as we walked into the house, I laid my hand on her forehead.
    To my