energy into parenting. Her kids were only going to be young once; she wanted to enjoy them. She now had time to pack healthy lunches, to volunteer in all three classrooms, to chaperone field trips, to read Harry Potter aloud at night, to make every practice, every ball game, and every ballet lesson early or on time. She was more focused; her house was cleaner; her kids, she thought, were happier now that they had her full attention. Her parenting wasn’t perfect, but it was earnest and well intentioned.
Just look at Claire this morning: She made breakfast for four kids (bacon, buttermilk pancakes, chocolate milk, vitamin pills). She chose clothes for four kids (the only one she could truly dress anymore was Zack; with the other three, the struggle was what matched, what was appropriate for school, what was clean). She packed lunch for three kids (J.D. liked strawberries, Ottilie demanded an obscene amount of mayonnaise on her sandwich, and Shea was “allergic” to strawberries—the only “fruit” she would eat without a fight was canned mandarin oranges). Claire kept track of homework, library books, permission slips, and whatever equipment—cleats, gloves, skates, goggles—they needed for their after-school activities (there was a color-coded schedule taped to the fridge). It wasn’t always the well-oiled machine that Claire dreamed of. Often, there were extenuating circumstances: someone had a “stomach ache” or a luridly loose tooth; it was pouring rain, or blizzarding sideways, or Zack had one of his inexplicable screaming fits and the noise pushed them all to the edge of insanity. Mom, make him stop! Many times, Claire stood in her own kitchen and thought, I can’t believe I make it through the morning, much less the rest of the day. Many times, Claire felt like a triage nurse: What needed her attention first?
This was the life she had chosen. She repeated certain thoughts like a mantra—Good mother! Only young once! Enjoy them! — as she shepherded them out the door.
Claire drove the kids to school. She took two to the elementary school and one to Montessori. Zack was strapped into his car seat, crying for his bottle, which none of the other three deigned to give him. Shea plugged her ears. The car was always loud, but Claire made a point to call Siobhan anyway. Siobhan had stopped at two kids, but Liam and Aidan were total hellions and fought incessantly, and Siobhan’s car was just as noisy.
“I woke up this morning and checked my calendar,” Siobhan said. “I see I missed your meeting last night. How was it?”
“Oh,” Claire said. The meeting had been a scant twelve hours earlier, and yet it had slipped down the drain with the dishwater. Her excitement had vaporized. But something lingered, some feelings about Lock Dixon. Could she share these feelings with Siobhan? She and Siobhan were married to brothers; they were frank with each other about their marriages. They loved to complain—sneaking cigarettes, too much TV, always bugging me for sex—and they loved to one-up each other when they complained. (Because Siobhan and Carter worked together, she claimed they were twice as sick of each other at the end of the day.) Siobhan had a crush on the Korean UPS man; Claire thought the twenty-year-old who picked up her trash was cute. They talked about other men in a funny, harmless way all the time. But Claire decided not to say anything about Lock, if only because she couldn’t tell what her feelings were, exactly. “It was fine. We talked about preliminary stuff.”
“Do you have a cochair?” Siobhan asked.
“I do. A woman named Isabelle French.”
“Isabelle French?”
“Yeah. Do you know her?”
Siobhan was quiet. This was very strange. Claire checked her phone, thinking it had cut out.
“Are you there?” Claire said.
“Yep.”
“Is everything okay?”
“We did a luncheon for Isabelle French this summer,” Siobhan said.
“You did? Where does she live?”
“Out in Monomoy. But not on the harbor. In the woods. On Brewster Road. Between Monomoy and Shimmo, really.”
“Okay, so what’s the deal? Did she not pay her bill? Was she a total bitch?”
“No, she was fine. With me.”
“Was she rude to Alec?” Alec was Siobhan and Carter’s Jamaican head server. “Did she use a racial slur?”
“No,” Siobhan said. “She was fine, agreeable, very nice. There was just this awful moment when she was out on the porch chatting away, and a coven of witches were in the kitchen slicing her to ribbons. I guess there was an incident in New York. She was at some big party and