to carry into the kitchen, mail and newspapers lying around. Suzy Homemaker he was not. “You’re shitting me.”
Red spread a magazine article on the coffee table in front of him. “This is last month’s Sports Illustrated. My PR manager got it in.”
Sean’s stomach twisted. There was a boxed feature on Derek’s funeral, with a shot of Sean standing with Ashley in his arms, Charlie and Cameron flanking him. They had that slicked-down, chastened look of lost children, and the photo was a heartbreaker. He’d seen the article when it first came out, then stuffed the magazine away somewhere. “Gee, Red. I could have gone all day without seeing that.”
“Shut up, Sean. You’ve captured the imagination of sports fans, and it’s crossing over. People are in love with your story. The bachelor uncle and three orphans.”
Sean was all too well aware of that. Since the funeral, offers from scary, desperate women had flooded in. He’d had to change his e-mail account, get a post office box. He never knew if a package from a stranger might contain a proposal couched in Bible verses or a pair of split-crotch panties.
“It gives people something,” Red went on. “Hope, belief that families matter. This is powerful stuff and it’s opening a door for you, Sean.”
He had the urge to jump around with excitement, but at the same time, reason prevailed. “I’m not doing it, Red. Going on the road like the frigging Partridge Family? No, thanks. I can’t exploit my brother’s death and these kids’ lives in order to sell more Wonder Bread.”
“Then you’re an idiot. You’re pissing away an opportunity that won’t knock twice.”
chapter 35
“I was hoping you wouldn’t pick up,” Lily’s mother said on the phone.
Lily tightened her grip on the receiver, tensing up as she always did around her mother. “Then why did you call?”
“To see if you were sitting at home and stewing even though it’s a Friday night. Apparently, you are.” Sharon didn’t speak unkindly, but matter-of-factly.
“What does it matter to you, Mom?” Lily asked.
“What a question,” she said. “Summer will be here before you know it and you’ll be off to Italy.”
Lily stayed silent. Eventually, she’d tell her mother she’d canceled the trip, but she didn’t like talking about it. The fact that she’d changed her plans naturally brought up questions about her motivation, questions she didn’t want to answer.
“I think it’s time you got back to your own life,” her mother said. “You should do something you’d normally do on a Friday night.”
“It’s funny, I can scarcely remember what that is.”
“Nonsense,” her mother said. “You went out with friends from work. Sometimes you had a date. I always liked that gym coach….”
“Everyone likes Greg,” Lily said. “He’s the world’s biggest flirt.”
“So call him up. Flirt a little. I mean it, Lily. You can’t keep hiding away, worrying about Crystal’s family. You have your own life to lead.”
Lily looked around her simple, tastefully decorated and orderly house. Her mother had a point. She did have a life of her own, except lately she had trouble remembering what that felt like. She spent so much time with Crystal’s kids—after school, Saturday mornings, Sunday afternoons—that being with them was starting to feel more like her life than…whatever it was she’d had before.
She made herself take an inventory of that, to remind herself of the things she valued. Solitude and order. Excellence in her job, intellectual curiosity, the occasional company of friends. Since Crystal’s death, all of that had fallen by the wayside.
“I can’t,” she admitted to her mother. “My life is completely different now. I’m in this weird limbo where I’m not in charge of Crystal’s kids but I don’t feel right leaving, either.”
“Nonsense,” her mother said again. Then a sigh slipped through the receiver. “You’ve done such a beautiful job with your life, Lily. Don’t mess it up now over someone else’s family.”
“God, Mom—”
“I’m speaking out of compassion for those children. It’s cruel to make them dependent on you when they can never really belong to you.”
Lily winced. Did her mother know how much this hurt or did she think she was being helpful?
“Their uncle could decide to move and then what will you do? Follow them around the country as what? Their unpaid nanny?”
“What do you do, lie awake at night and think up things to worry about?” Lily asked with a humorless, incredulous laugh. It struck her that at the conference with Sean, those very same concerns had come out. Which meant Lily was more like her