(the idea of four kids frightened many off). But Matthew would stay in this room in August. Claire really did not want Shea to throw up on the million-dollar sheets. She went to the linen closet and pulled out a bucket, placed it by Shea’s bed.
“Just in case,” she said.
A note from Jason on the kitchen counter said, Working. Claire poured herself coffee, then a glass of water, and she took three Advil. It was a beautiful day outside, sunny, springtime; they only got two or three days like this, and they should be taking advantage of it. Picnic at Great Point, a walk around Squam Swamp, something outside, wholesome, as a family.
She hugged Zack, kissed his eyelids, his nose. “I love you,” she said. “Can I put you in your high chair, please? So I can get breakfast?”
He clung to her. He would not be set down. It was impossible to deal with frying bacon, mixing up pancake batter, or stirring chocolate powder into milk when she didn’t have hands. She poured J.D. and Ottilie bowls of cereal and then called upstairs for them to come down. She tried to interest Zack in a banana, but he just stared at it.
“Banana,” she said. “You eat it.” She took a bite, then regretted it. “See?”
Claire eyed the phone. Should she call Jason on his cell and try apologizing again? Should she call Siobhan? It wasn’t even seven-thirty yet, and unlike Claire’s kids, Liam and Aidan had been known to sleep until noon on the weekends, so no, she couldn’t call Siobhan. (And what would she say when she did call? Should she promise to call Edward and deal with the catering issue? She couldn’t! She had delegated the catering to Edward, he and his committee had made a decision, and now Claire’s hands were tied.) The other, more substantive issue rested like a boulder between them. Claire hadn’t told her about Lock; Claire wasn’t going to tell her about Lock.
Claire called up to J.D. and Ottilie again—she could hear the goddamned Doppler effect of the race car game—but she knew they wouldn’t come down, and when they did come down and found cold cereal, they would complain. So forget it. Breakfast was a lost cause.
She slipped into the home office, Zack heavy against her chest, and switched on the computer.
“Computer,” she said, pointing to the screen.
Lock was due home in the morning. Finally, finally. There was no way he had expended the psychic energy on her that she had on him. She was angry at herself, but helpless, too. She couldn’t control her thoughts, and as had been demonstrated last night, she could only marginally control her words and actions, and they all led back to him.
She opened her e-mail. There was the ill-fated message from Edward, copied to Isabelle and Lauren van Aln and the two women from New York who were also on the catering committee. There was no e-mail from Lock.
Claire squeezed Zack, kissed his hair. Upstairs, she heard Shea retching.
She had never felt so lonely in all her life.
She fell asleep across her bed with Zack next to her, which was, she realized when she woke up, a precious gift, despite the fact that she had left the other three children—one of them sick—unparented. She checked the clock: it was nearly ten. There were no sounds from upstairs, which alarmed her. Better she should hear the zooming of the godforsaken race car game or Shea retching, if only to know the kids were still alive. She poked her head into the kitchen. Everything was just as it had been—Jason’s infuriating note, two uneaten bowls of Cheerios. She tried to feed a few Cheerios to Zack, who had resumed his position on her shoulder—she was a pirate, he was her squawking parrot—but he clamped his mouth shut.
Upstairs, the computer was abandoned, J.D.’s room empty (bed unmade, pajamas in a pile on the floor instead of in the hamper), and the girls’ room empty and reeking. Claire had forgotten to strip the bed of the vomited-upon sheets. She, the Laundry Queen, had forgotten the second most important thing, after getting Shea situated. Now the room smelled sour and vile, the odor made worse by the fact that the day was warm and the girls’ windows closed.
But first, the children. The door to the guest room was shut tight and there was no noise leaking from within, not even the muted babble of the Cartoon Network (Claire hated it