Prologue

McKinney, Texas

1976

Mathematics gave Georgeanne Howard a headache, and reading made her eyes hurt. At least when she was reading, she could move her finger along the tricky words and fake it sometimes. She couldn’t fake math.

Georgeanne laid her forehead on the piece of paper sitting on her desk and listened to the sounds of her fourth grade classmates playing outside at recess beneath the warm Texas sun. She hated math, but she especially hated counting all those dumb bundles of sticks. Sometimes she stared at the little drawings of sticks so hard her headand eyes ached. But each time she counted, she came up with the same answers—the wrong answers.

To take her mind off the math, Georgeanne thought of the pink tea she and her grandmother planned to have after school. Grand