Excerpt from Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The door was sliding shut when Angel held up a finger— wait—and ran around to the service elevator where they kept the packages. He came back with a box.

"For Mommy," Angel said.

Riding up in the elevator, she turned the box around in her arms. Its flaps were tucked instead of taped together, and there wasn't any postage or even a street address. And another thing: It was addressed, in black Sharpie, to Mrs. Jack Shanley. No one called her mother that except for Kay's grandparents, her father's mother.

In the light of the hall, she noticed something pink where the flaps left an opening. The one thing she would not confess to after that night, for which she would always feel a flush of shame, was the thought that inside the box was a present for her.

Her birthday was not until September, and they observed Easter only in candy aisles the day after. However. If it was a gift for her, she didn't want to wait until the fall to get it, and if it was for her mother, or her father, or for Simon, then there wasn't any harm checking.

Inside, it was just paper. So many pieces of paper, thrown together like tickets in a raffle.

i went to that dinner party in red hook tonight. all the talk was about what's happening in syria, what's happening in egypt, and i can only think about what's happening with you.

The feeling that her domino eyes were running over something she wasn't supposed to see. She tried to make them stop, or to see without reading, but they could not, would not stop.

i can't explain why i get so sad when you make me so happy

i've been thinking of how you pressed my hand against your neck

show me your cunt

And right there, slid off the top, the winning ticket, the pink that had drawn her in: an envelope. This, too, was addressed to her mother, but it wasn't sealed, and so she opened it. The letter was the only thing in the box that had been written by hand.

Dear Deborah,

And:

I began sleeping with your husband last June.

And:

I know about Kay.

She redid the flaps, held the box under her arm, and let herself into the apartment. Clenching all her parts as she passed her mother and brother in front of the television.

"Kay?" her mother called. "Why so late?"

Quickly to her room, head down to hide her face. There was that little guy in her throat, the one that hurt when she wanted to cry.

Her mother's shoes clicking nearer, she buried the box under a tangle of shirtsleeves on the floor of her closet just as the door swung open. "Babe? What happened to you? I tried Arlene." Kay pretended to look for something in her bottom dresser drawer. "She never picks up. I don't like that woman." Kay was moving handfuls of clothes from one end of the drawer to the other. "Did you hear me?"

"She's a good mom." She hadn't meant to defend Racky's mother. Feeling herself start to cry, she dug deeper into the drawer. Nightgown. Where was her yellow nightgown?

"Baby, did something happen?" Deb's hand touched her shoulder and Kay twisted away. Her mother was quiet and so pretty, with her shiny hair and tiny waist, the evenness and natural tan of skin that Kay had not gotten from her. "Did you have a hard time with the girls, with learning the bike?"

The bike, the sleepover, those things seemed small and far away now, but remembering made everything worse: yet another place where her life was not as she wanted it to be: She had unkind friends. But in a way it was good to remember, it allowed for her tears. Her mother held her, and she let herself be held, in the orb of Deb's Deb-scented perfume.

"Did you fall?"

Kay nodded. The wet skin under her eye stuck to her mother's arm.

"Where does it hurt?"

Excerpted from Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont. Copyright © 2015 by Julia Pierpont. Excerpted by permission of Random House. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.