Introduction

A young girl searches for a mother's love amid unfolding secrets, in this riveting and emotionally complex novel from acclaimed author Sherri Wood Emmons.

The summer that her father falls in love with Emma, Jenny Bohner is just turning eleven. Jenny was three when her mother died, and since then Brannon Bohner has traveled with his daughter from one seasonal job to another, picking up girlfriends along the way. Cara, Ami, Trish--all were sweet and kind, but none ever stayed for long. Somehow Emma is different, traveling with them from Idaho to Kentucky, filling Jenny with hopes of a real family at last.

Emma's warmth and optimism are contagious, defusing Brannon's flashes of temper and making their first weeks together everything Jenny has dreamed of. Yet something still troubles her, surfacing through years of memories--tempting her from within boxes Jenny has been told never to touch, filled with hidden mementoes from long ago. And somewhere among them Jenny will find answers that compel her to choose--between the home she longs for, the love she craves, and the hard truth she can no longer ignore. . .

Praise for the novels of Sherri Wood Emmons

The Weight of Small Things
"Emmons writes beautifully about women, friendship and choices, and engagingly chronicles the long friendship that becomes a mutual lifeline." --The Sunday Star Ledger

The Sometimes Daughter
"Emmons has a keen grasp of the difficulties of mother-daughter dynamics. . .an intimate story." --Publishers Weekly

"Teens who appreciated Lauren Myracle's Bliss or autobiographies by Augusten Burroughs and Jeannette Walls of dysfunctional family survivors should also enjoy this novel." –School Library Journal

Prayers and Lies
"A rich story of the triumph of love and decency." –Sandra Dallas, author of Prayers for Sale

"A strong debut. . .Emmons has a rich voice that pairs well with the earthy setting. . .and the characters are wonderfully drawn." –Publishers Weekly

"Surely Sherri Wood Emmons is the freshest new voice I've read in a long while. Read Prayers and Lies, and hold on tight! You are in for an unforgettable literary ride!" --Ann Hood, author of The Red Thread

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

Jenny

I remember how it started, the beginning of the end. Of course I

didn’t know it then.

We were in southern Idaho and it was July. Daddy was working for the summer at a little campground that sat in a broad, grassy prairie between two mountain ranges. It was a nice place, hot and dry so you always had to carry a bottle of water with you. A curvy, slow-moving river ran just east of the campground, and lots of geese and ducks lived there. Sometimes we saw wild elk in the fields. Once at the river, I even saw a mother moose with her baby, standing on spindly legs in the water. If I’d had a camera, I would have taken a picture of them. I didn’t have a camera, but I still re- member how the mother glared at me as she stepped between Daddy and me and her baby. She was protecting him, I guess. That’s what mothers are supposed to do.

Near the entrance to the campground sat a tiny, dusty restaurant called Zella Fay’s Café. That’s where we ate most of our meals. Zella Fay was an enormously fat old woman with a patch over her left eye and a bad temper. I never had the nerve to ask why she had an eye patch. She kind of scared me. But she made the best beef stew I’d ever had, and she always gave me an extra biscuit. Some-

times she let me take leftover bread from the restaurant to feed the ducks.

To the east, we could see the Teton Mountains from our camp- site, with snow on the tops even in the summer. A boy who was staying at the campground in June told me that Tetons meant “tit- ties” in French. Then he pinched my chest hard and laughed. I wanted to punch him. I let my hands curl into fists so tight my finger- nails bit into my palms. But I didn’t hit him, of course. He was a guest, and we had to be nice to the guests because they were paying to be there. They were paying for us to be there, too, Daddy said. Sometimes I hated that.

Anyway, that night in early July, I was lying on my bed—it was a shelf, really, in an alcove that jutted out of the trailer when we set up camp. I was staring at the roof, bored and kind of thirsty, wish- ing I could turn on the light to read. I was supposed to be asleep, but it was still light outside, even though it was almost nine o’clock. And it was still God-awful hot. I lay on top of the sheets below the screened window just over my bed, waiting for the breeze I knew would come eventually. We had air-conditioning in the trailer, but Daddy didn’t like to run it at night. Once the sun set, it always cooled off so much I had to pull my quilt over me. Daddy said the fresh air was good for us both.

Outside, I heard Daddy talking softly and then laughing. I peeked out the window and saw him dancing in the grass with Emma, his arms wrapped around her waist. She tilted her head back to laugh and then saw me watching them from the window. Before I could drop the mini-blind, she smiled and winked at me.

I liked Emma. Actually, I liked her a lot. She took care of the horses at the campground, and she let me help feed them and sometimes brush them. Most days, she led the paying guests on trail rides into the surrounding foothills, telling them the history of the area, pointing out photo opportunities, and making sure they didn’t get hurt . . . or worse, hurt the horses.

Emma knew every horse in the stable by name. She knew each one’s likes and dislikes, its weaknesses and its stubborn streaks. She

said the most important job she had was pairing a horse with a rider who would appreciate it. That and making sure that everyone got back to the campground in one piece.

For three years, Emma had been working at the campground. She was a year-round employee, taking care of the horses even after the campground closed for the season and the snow set in for months on end.

Daddy and I were only there for the summer. When the season ended and the campground closed, we would move on to the next place where Daddy could find work. Some people called us workam- pers, because we moved around so much and lived in a trailer. Daddy said we were modern-day gypsies or maybe even pioneers. He said stuff like that.

I was reading about the pioneers that summer. The week before, Emma had taken me to Victor, a little town that sat right up next to the mountains. We went to the Emporium for huckleberry shakes and then to the library to get some books about the people who’d come across the Teton Mountains in covered wagons to settle the area. Compared to those wagons, our trailer seemed pretty fancy. We had an electrical hookup and running water. We had GPS and even a satellite TV, which Daddy let me watch sometimes, but only after I had finished my lessons. Mostly, we used the TV to watch the Weather Channel. When you live in a trailer, you really do have to watch the weather.

Of course, compared to the houses I saw in the towns around the campground, our trailer seemed kind of shabby. There were some fancy houses in that valley, all brand-new and beautiful, with huge windows facing the mountains and sprinklers making “che- che-che” sounds as they sprayed water across the huge lawns. Zella Fay at the restaurant complained all the time about how much water people wasted on those lawns. They were mostly vacation homes, Daddy said. People built them just to come for a few months in the winter, when the ski hill was open. During the sum- mer, they sat mostly empty, their windows glinting sunlight back at the mountains.

Still, our trailer was way better than the motels we used to live in, Daddy and me. Some of those places had been downright scary, with skittering roaches and mice. Once Daddy even killed a big gray rat that was hiding under our bed. And every few months, or even every few weeks, we’d move to another motel room and scrub it clean with Lysol and start all over again. At least with the trailer, we took all our stuff with us. And my bed in the alcove shelf was al- ways my bed, with my own sheets and pillow and Bugsy Bear, the stuffed panda my mother bought for me before I was even born.

I raised the mini-blind again and peeked out the window. Daddy was kissing Emma’s neck now and his hand was on her butt. Then I knew that she was probably going to be my new stepmom. For a minute, I let myself hope that she would stay. But almost as soon as the wish formed, it disappeared. I knew Emma wouldn’t stay too long, no matter how much I wished. They didn’t ever stay, not any of them.

Two weeks later, Emma moved her things from her room at the bunkhouse into the trailer. She didn’t have a lot to move—just a duffel bag and a backpack. Daddy made space in a drawer beneath their bed for her things.

That night, I squeezed my eyes shut tight and tried hard to sleep, willing myself to see cartoon sheep or anything else I might count. There was no door to my little shelf/alcove and only a flimsy accordion door across the hallway into Daddy’s bedroom. Like I said, a lot of women had come to live with us. And I really hated hearing them at night.

That night, Emma’s voice rang out as clear as day.

“So Jenny hasn’t ever been in a real school? Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Daddy’s voice was soft and low. He knew how everything worked in the trailer, knew I might still be awake. “She’s doing a homeschool program on the computer. We move around too much to enroll her anywhere. She’s better off this way.”

“But . . .” Emma’s voice trailed away. I heard Daddy kiss her. “But nothing,” he said finally. “We use an accredited program.

She has her laptop. We have the Internet. She’s as smart as a whip. And she’s fine.”

“And you are more than fine.” Emma’s voice was breathy and

soft.

I squeezed my eyes closed more tightly.

“Let me show you how fine I am.” Daddy laughed. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Zella Fay tells Emma that Brannon is carrying a lot of baggage. Are there any red flags in Brannon’s behavior in Idaho that Emma misses? Is she foolish to leave Idaho with Brannon and Jenny? Have you ever taken a risk that big? Did that risk pay off, or not?

2. Emma grew up in the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints community, which upholds the legitimacy of polygamy. Do you believe polygamous marriage can ever be okay, or is it fundamentally wrong?

3. Angel asks Emma if she thinks “white folks are the only ones who can hate,” and says her father hated white people because of the way he had been treated in the South under Jim Crow. Does that hatred make Angel’s father a racist? Or do you agree with filmmaker Spike Lee, who said in a 1991 interview with Playboy magazine, “Black people can’t be racist. Racism is an institution.”?

4. What role does Jasper Rigby play in the story? Is there hope for his becoming a better man than his father, or has his upbringing sealed his fate?

5. After Mrs. Figg’s death, Lashaundra tells Jenny that people who don’t believe in God probably go to hell. Do you believe in heaven and hell? Is belief in God a prerequisite to heaven?

6. Sister Frances tells Emma that all churches are human creations, but she still believes in God. Does that jibe with your experience of church? Why or why not?

7. Lorelei tells Emma that their meeting at Loretto is “a Godthing.” Is that something you believe in, or is their meeting simply a lucky happenstance? Have you ever had an experience you would call a God-thing?

8. Jenny comes to believe that Emma is different from all of her previous “stepmothers.” Yet it’s Jenny’s actions that precipitate their flight from Brannon. Is Emma really different from her predecessors, or has Jenny simply become old enough to start asking questions about her father’s life?

9. Is Emma right to accept the reward money offered by Ami Gordon’s family? Or does it seem like she is profiting from Brannon’s crimes? Would you feel comfortable accepting such a reward? Why or why not?

10. Given Brannon’s childhood experiences, is he simply a product of terrible circumstance? Does his background in any way mitigate his crimes? Is he in any way a sympathetic character?

11. Emma’s first marriage was to an abusive man. After she left him, she tells Jenny, she followed a man from Salt Lake City to Rexburg, Idaho, because she thought he was “really nice.” But he turned out to be not a good guy. Finally, she marries Brannon, who also has an abusive history. What in her background leads Emma into one abusive relationship after another? Is she doomed to keep repeating that pattern?

12. Jenny has seen her father’s uncontrolled anger, and even episodes of violence. Is she in any way complicit in Brannon’s crimes? Does she have a responsibility to warn Emma, or is she simply too young to be accountable?

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