his eyes would show that glimmer, that promise that her other kids had shown: intelligence, motivation, determination. Since Zack’s birth, she had lived with the whisper, There’s something wrong with him. She constantly badgered Jason: Do you think something happened when he was born? Do you think there’s something Dr. Patel isn’t telling me, or something she didn’t see? To which Jason always responded, “For Chrissakes, Claire, he’s fine!” But that sounded to Claire like denial. It sounded like Jason was blinded by love.
How was she going to tell Jason about the gala? Claire waited through dinner—fried chicken, Jason’s favorite. She waited through bath and stories for the girls and a shower and homework for J.D. She waited until Zack had his bottle, until Jason was relaxed on the sofa, remote control in hand. The TV was on, but Jason had not committed to anything yet. Now was the time to tell him! This was their life now, but Claire could remember Jason naked and grinning with a clam rake in his hand, his sun-bleached hair shining like gold.
“I had lunch with Lock Dixon today,” she said. “At the yacht club.”
He heard her, but he wasn’t listening. “Did you?”
“Doesn’t that surprise you?”
Jason changed the channel. Claire resented the TV, all fifty-two bright, chirping inches of it. “A little, I guess.”
“He asked me to cochair the summer gala.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, the Nantucket’s Children thing. The event. The concert. The thing we went to last month.”
At this past year’s gala, while Jason lingered at the back bar with his fishing buddies, Claire had applauded as the two cochairs floated up onto the stage to accept bouquets of flowers. As if they had been named prom queen. As if they had won an Academy Award. Claire had been caught up in the glamour of it all. The mere fact that she had sat down for a civilized lunch at the yacht club made Claire believe that if she agreed to cochair the summer gala for Nantucket’s Children, her life would be more like that and less like it was now. Claire never ate lunches like the one she had had today. Lunch for her was a sleeve of saltines that she kept in the console of her Honda Pilot and stuffed blindly into her mouth as she picked the kids up from school. If she was at home, lunch was a bowl of cereal that she poured at eleven thirty (it was breakfast and lunch), which grew soggy before Claire finished it because the baby cried, or the phone rang, or the crumbs under her feet pushed her past her already-high threshold for filth and yuck and she capitulated and pulled out the vacuum. If Claire agreed to cochair the gala, her life might take on a distinguished quality, the golden glow that accompanied a life devoted to good works. How could she explain this to Jason?
“He asked you to chair it?”
“Cochair it. I’d have help.”
“I hope you said no.”
She stroked Zack’s soft head. “I said yes.”
“Jesus, Claire.”
Was it so wrong? She and Jason had spent the past seven months living in reverence of their own good fortune. Wasn’t it time now to think of others? To raise money for kids whose parents were working themselves sick with three jobs?
“It’s a good cause,” she said.
Jason huffed, turned the volume up. And that, she supposed, was the best she could hope for.
“You’re a complete idiot, Clairsy. A bloody fool.”
This was Siobhan, the next morning on the phone, after Claire had told her, Lock Dixon asked me to chair the summer gala for Nantucket’s Children, and I capitulated like a soldier without a gun.
“I’m not a fool.”
“You’re too much yourself.”
“Right,” Claire said, losing enthusiasm. “Jason is not amused. Have I made a whopping mistake?”
“Yes,” Siobhan said.
Claire had spent the past twenty hours convincing herself that it was an honor to be asked. “It will be fun.”
“It will be work and stress and heartache like you’ve never known.”
“It’s for a good cause,” Claire said, trying again.
“That sounds rather canned,” Siobhan said. “Tell me something true.”
I did it because Lock asked me, Claire thought. But that would send Siobhan through the roof. “I couldn’t say no.”
“Bingo. You have no boundaries. Your cells don’t have membranes.”
Correct. This had been a problem since childhood: Claire’s parents had battled constantly; their problems came in thirty flavors. Claire was the only child, she held herself accountable for their misery, and her parents did nothing to dissuade her from this. (Things had