Qualities of Light by Mary Carroll Moore

An early summer morning, a forbidden boat ride. An accident that puts Molly Fisher's seven-year-old brother in a coma. And Molly's life plummets out of orbit. Steeped in self-blame, she reaches out to her parents. But they occupy their own elliptical orbits, grief-stricken, distant, estranged from her and from each other. Into Molly's anguish and solitude intrude two people: Chad, whose awkward courtship meets her even more awkward response; and Zoe, at seventeen a year older than Molly, and seemingly light years ahead in the frankness of her interest and the boldness of her pursuit of Molly. Qualities of Light explores the budding of unexpected romance in the face of family tragedy, the forging of a new relationship between a daughter and her gifted, difficult parents, and an adolescent girl's confrontation with her own qualities of light and darkness.