Excerpt from The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I concentrated until there was only one voice left in my head. I guess it sounded like me; at least it sounded familiar. "I'm in the room," I finally said into the emptiness around me.

"I'm right here." But it was just me and the silence around me, and in that nothingness, I was afraid. I was terrified of other people and of my own damn self, and my fears were overwhelming, closing in on me like something near and breathing. Without my chemical surges, I didn't know how I would stay focused and move beyond those fears. I hosed up the last of the Adderall, tidied the desk, slipped out of the office, and finally felt ready to face the night.

Fresh garlands had been wrapped around the banister of the grand staircase from the foyer to the balcony upstairs. In every room, the catering staff fussed with last-minute details. Two tuxedoed waiters fluffed the gauze of fake snow around the base of the tree in the sitting room. In the library, a bartender set up rows of glasses atop a makeshift bar he'd positioned in the doorway to the kitchen. The catering company never sent the same people twice to Mother's parties, but they all knew how to handle the production. Throughout the party, their silent ensemble would appear on cue and recede again into the scenery. As soon as guests arrived, I'd get my call to enter from the wings, but for now, nobody seemed to notice me.

In the kitchen, I found Elena speaking with a few of the caterers. She winced as she glanced over at the mess they were making, but when she saw me she came right over. She wore the same white-collared shirt she always wore when Mother threw a party. Her hair was fixed up, and when I stooped to hug her I thought I might crush the delicate ruffles cascading down the button line. "You're going to have fun tonight?" she asked me in Spanish.

"No, I won't."

She straightened my collar. "You need to take better care of yourself."

"But you're here," I said.

"Ah, m'ijo, please," she grumbled. She never called me that in front of my parents, of course, and we never spoke Spanish in front of them either. I practiced my Spanish with her when we were alone in the house and, by now, after all that time together, I was nearly fluent.

She kissed her fingers and reached them up to my face. Her cheeks made her eyes squint when she smiled. "Please. Be sensible."

"Look at me," I said, pointing to my coat and tie, the ones I knew Mother wanted me to wear. "I'm ready to play my part." She watched the caterers fiddle with the two wall ovens, and I took her hand. "Can't we just hide out in your apartment?" I asked. "She won't even notice we're gone. Look at all these people she's hired. She doesn't need us."

Elena stared at me. "Are you okay? What's the matter with your eyes?"

"Nothing."

I'm sure my eyes were red rimmed, but she only shook her head and, as usual, didn't ask anything else about it. She hugged me, then she stepped back and put her hands to my cheeks. "Please. You'll help too. For your mother. Do it for her." She kissed me and hugged me again, wrapping me up in those arms as she so often did.

I would have held on longer if a waiter didn't knock a bowl off the counter. It crashed, and the glass shattered on the kitchen floor. Elena turned around quickly. "Ay, dios mio." She glared at him. "They never care," she muttered as she went to the pantry for a broom.

With a sense of duty hanging over me, I went looking for Mother. I heard her voice call out from the living room. "No fumé blanc?" she asked. I couldn't help it: Sometimes when I heard her all twisted up like that, I thought of dolphins chirping. "No fumé blanc?" She spoke to a phantom only she could see. The cut of her deep-red evening gown revealed nearly all of her back. "Chardonnay and fumé blanc. Y fumé blanc, I told Elena. Y, Y, Y. This isn't a charity party we're hosting. It's a Christmas party. Choices are part of the elegance." Mother always found the loose stitch that could reduce a priceless carpet to a pile of threads. There was more wine than anyone could drink and, if it was like any of her other parties, even the caterers would be slugging down the open bottles, stumbling back into their vans at the end of the night.

Excerpted from The Gospel of Winter by Brendan Kiely. Copyright © 2014 by Brendan Kiely. Excerpted by permission of Margaret K. McElderry Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.