1. Hairline Cracks
CHAPTER ONE
HAIRLINE CRACKS
Claire
I lower myself into my office chair, my throat raw from a day of negotiations that went nowhere.
My eyes land on a stack of resident files, Heidi’s on top.
I should sign them, but my hand feels too heavy to lift the pen.
An empty coffee mug sits beside my laptop, a cold reminder of a break I never took.
I reach for my phone to check the time.
4:30 p.m.
Ellie’s academic awards ceremony.
“Damn it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Between the emergency trip to urgent care after one of the girls was injured, two hours of arguing over funding, and mediating yet another resident dispute, I’d forgotten.
My gaze lands on the framed photo beside my monitor.
Ellie, six years old, grinning through the gap where she’d lost her front tooth.
There was a time when I was there for every scraped knee, bedtime story and school performance.
Now, eighteen months after returning to work, it feels like I’m forever racing from one crisis to the next, missing the moments that matter most.
I miss hearing about her day over dinner. I miss ordinary evenings that don’t require negotiations and calendars. Most of all, I miss being the first person she wants to tell.
We once had an endless supply of time, lingering over dinner and talking about our day. Now our conversations revolve around work schedules and logistics, like we’re brokering an international peace treaty.
I reread the same email for the third time, the words blurring together.
Last week, I spent ten minutes searching for my glasses only for Ellie to point out they were on my head.
It’s funny until it’s not. I’m running on caffeine and calendar reminders, and even that’s starting to fail me.
Between hot flashes and a non-existent sex drive, I feel like a stranger in my body.
‘Professionally accomplished and personally unraveling’—that’s me.
Constant drama at Juniper House consumes my spare time. Most people hear “group home” and picture a building. I picture faces: Heidi, Brianna, and Kayla are just three of the twenty-four girls that live here.
Juniper House exists for girls who have run out of second chances, bounced between foster homes, relatives, and systems that have failed them.
Each girl comes with a different story, but most begin the same way.
Someone who should have protected them didn’t.
My goal is to help these girls believe they deserve a future that looks different from their past.
My phone buzzes—the screen lights up with a picture of Ethan from college.
Just like that, I’m back in the campus library, watching him barrel through the doors, his dark hair a mess and that easy grin already spreading across his face.
He’d invented excuses to talk to me at the circulation desk for three months before finally asking me out.
“What are you doing Friday?”
I looked up from my cart of books. “Working.”
“Right. Yeah. Of course.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly awkward. For a guy who could charm an entire room, he looked terrified. “I was wondering if you’d maybe want to get dinner?”
My heart did an embarrassing little flip. “Dinner?”
“Or not dinner.”
“I eat dinner.”
He smiled, relieved. “Right. Good point.” He took a deep breath. “Claire, would you like to go on an actual date with me? One where food may or may not be involved?”
The confident smile he wore around everyone else was gone, replaced by genuine worry that I might say no. And somehow, that vulnerability was precisely what made me say, “I’d like that.”
His face went so slack with relief it was almost comical. He nodded once, twice, then turned and started walking away.
“Ethan?” He spun around.
“You forgot to ask what time I get off Friday night, and maybe my phone number would help?”
A blush spread across his face. “Right, details. Definitely important.”
Envisioning the memory of his carefree smile makes me realize how long it’s been since I’ve seen it in person.
During our first Thanksgiving together, I brought him to Juniper Ridge since his parents were living in Germany. My family fell in love with him, just as I had.
When I told him I intended to settle in Juniper Ridge, Ethan said he would follow me anywhere, provided we stayed in one place.
His parents’ years of constant moving fueled his desire to raise children in a stable environment.
His father, a retired General, and his mother, a retired nurse, both live in Florida now.
When we graduated from college, he was ready for permanence in a way I didn’t understand then. Juniper Ridge became home for both of us, but for vastly different reasons. He saw roots, while I just saw the small town I’d always known.
It’s the kind of place where everything feels solid, predictable. You can go years without a single tremor, and then one morning, your whole world starts to shake.
The benefit of living in the same town you grew up in—family is never far.
Which reminds me, I need to call Lucy, or maybe Sloane.
I grab my phone and pull up my contacts, my thumb hovering between the two.
Even at thirty-five, Lucy will always be the baby sister.
Sloane, our cousin, falls between us in age, but she’s been just as much a sister.
I call Sloane. She answers on the second ring, already mid-sentence “—completely harmless, I swear, but now there are feathers in my—Claire? You there?”
“I’m here.” I press the phone harder against my ear, grounding myself in her chaos.
Growing up, she was our ringleader for troublemaking. Stolen lipsticks, midnight escapes through my bedroom window, the time she convinced us to “borrow” my dad’s truck at sixteen. If someone was attempting something questionable, chances are Sloane was behind it.
“What’s wrong?” Her voice shifts, all mischief gone.
“Nothing. Everything.” I close my eyes, feeling the familiar weight of always having to be the responsible one.
The one who held Lucy when she cried for Mom and didn’t understand why she wasn’t coming back.
The one who learned to make mac and cheese at twelve because Dad was always working, and grief had hollowed out our kitchen.
“I need to call Lucy too. Can you—would you conference her in?”
“Already on it.”
Three beeps, then Lucy’s breathless hello comes across the line.
“Sorry, sorry, I was—Sloane, why are you calling me at—Claire?”
“Dad’s birthday is two weeks away, and if we don’t make a plan now, we’ll end up ordering pizza again,” I say.
“He’d be happy if we all just show up,” Lucy replies.
Sloane scoffs, “Speak for yourself. Your dad deserves brisket, bourbon, and someone else paying the bill.”
“How does the sixteenth work for everyone?” Lucy asks.
I glance at my calendar. “Works for us.”
“My parents would be happy to host at the Vineyard. I’ll call them now,” Sloane says, and then I hear a dial tone.
I guess our conversation is over.
I glance toward the window, where Aunt Sarah’s vineyard stretches across the hills. Sinclair Vineyards, one of the oldest in the region. She and Uncle Jeremy took us in when Dad couldn’t manage. They fed us and loved us, never once made us feel like burdens.
Movement in the courtyard catches my eye. A few girls are bent over their homework before dinner, and one girl is engrossed in a book.
Heidi’s usual spot is empty. This afternoon, she came home from school with blood trickling down her cheek, a bruise swelling beneath her eye, and pain etched across her face.
She insisted she’d walked into an open cabinet in the chemistry lab.
The explanation was unconvincing. A few months ago, a self-harm incident changed the course of her life, bringing her to Juniper House.
Every girl who walks through these doors has already learned things no one should have to know. I can’t erase their past, just as I can’t erase what happened to my family. But I can ensure they have a safe place to land.