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  No reply.

  No surprise.

  She isn’t in the mood to go chasing after him. Anyway, if Ryan doesn’t put Sadie on the phone with Nick, she’ll probably never know the difference. It’s not as though their youngest child has asked for her father much lately—or, for that matter, for her pink stuffed bunny. But Lauren suspects they both weigh heavily on Sadie’s mind.

  “I’m starved.” Lucy snags a grape tomato from the salad Lauren’s throwing together. “When’s dinner?”

  “Soon. Did you remember to pick up the mail for the Hilberts and the Levines?” The next-door neighbors on either side of them are vacationing together in the Outer Banks this week.

  “And the O’Neals. Yes.”

  “The O’Neals went with them?” They’re the across-the-street neighbors.

  “No, they’re in California. We’re, like, the only ones left on the block this week. Can we go someplace good next summer, Mom?”

  “Like…camp?”

  “I was thinking Europe. I’ve never been there.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  “That’s so sad. Everyone should visit Europe before they turn twenty-one.”

  “Yeah? Who told you that?” Glancing at her daughter, Lauren knows right away.

  Beth.

  “Never mind,” she tells Lucy, who shrugs and steals another tomato as Chauncey trots into the kitchen. “Can you please feed the dog?”

  Lucy opens a cupboard and finds a can of Alpo. “You know, Mom, it’s crazy for you to pay someone to walk him every day when you can pay me instead.”

  “I’m not the one who does the paying, your father does,” Lauren reminds her. “And you weren’t here all summer, and you won’t be here when school starts, so…”

  “But I’m here now.”

  “So are Ingrid and Ted.” Chauncey’s regular walkers, a middle-aged woman and a college-age man, work for Dog Days, the local service Nick hired. Until he decides it’s no longer necessary, she might as well keep them around to make her life easier.

  The same goes for Magic Maids, the cleaning service. Now that Lucy and Ryan are home, Tuesday—the regular cleaning day—can’t come soon enough.

  “Here you go, boy.”

  As Lucy puts a bowl of dog food on the floor in front of an appreciative Chauncey, Lauren admires her daughter’s effortless beauty. Lucy is blessed with a trim athletic build, big green eyes, and a flawless complexion that’s seen a little too much sun this summer for Lauren’s peace of mind—though she secretly acknowledges that the glow is becoming. Lucy’s perpetual ponytail has been replaced, over the summer, by a new style. Damp and freshly shampooed, it falls straight and silky past her shoulders.

  Any second now, she’s probably going to come home with her first boyfriend.

  And I’ll have to handle that on my own, too.

  But Lauren will have to worry about it when the time comes. What matters now is that Lucy is all right—faring better, perhaps, than anyone. She’s no longer pulling out her eyelashes. Nick was right about one thing: the time away from home obviously did their older daughter a world of good.

  As for their youngest child… Sadie did see the child psychiatrist, Dr. Rogel, once. Lauren can’t tell whether it helped or not. For the first half hour, Sadie spoke to the doctor alone, behind closed doors.

  “But you said I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers,” she protested when the doctor summoned her in.

  “It’s okay. I’m right here. And Dr. Rogel’s not a stranger. I know him.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “You can talk to him. That’s why we’re here.”

  Miraculously, once she got over her shyness, Sadie actually did open up to Dr. Rogel. She talked a lot about Fred, her missing toy rabbit.

  When Dr. Rogel met with Lauren after the session, he asked if Fred was real. Apparently, he thought Fred might be some kind of psychological metaphor for Nick.

  When he found out Fred was real and had, indeed, gone missing, Dr. Rogel nodded knowingly.

  “It’s very common for children of divorce to become excessively attached to, and even hypervigilant about, their belongings.”

  Lauren was so stuck on the phrase “children of divorce” that she didn’t think to ask any follow-up questions.

  Children of divorce.

  It’s surreal, even now, to hear Lucy, Ryan, and Sadie described that way.

  Children of divorce? Her kids? How did this happen?

  She should probably schedule a return visit to Dr. Rogel for Sadie before school starts. Maybe for all three of them. It’s expensive, and insurance doesn’t cover it, but Nick told her to do whatever she thought was necessary.

  Dr. Rogel did mention that he’d be going on vacation in August. But maybe he’s back by now—or hasn’t left yet. And he said another doctor would be covering his patients in his absence.

  I’ll call and make an appointment for Sadie, Lauren decides. She needs it.

  Hell, maybe I need a shrink, too.

  “So…how’s your father?” she asks Lucy, reaching for an avocado that’s been ripening on the windowsill.

  “Good. He said there’s no cell service out at the house he’s renting, so he can only call us when he’s in the town.”

  “I thought he’s been texting you.”

  “He did, a few times—he must have been in town.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  Lucy looks hard at her. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t you believe that?”

  “Believe what? I didn’t even say anything.”

  “You said ‘mmm hmm,’ like you think Daddy made it up about the cell service and not being able to get in touch with us more.”

  “I don’t think that, sweetie.”

  Okay, that’s a lie. And judging by the flash of misgiving in Lucy’s eyes, maybe she doesn’t believe Nick, either.

  “What else did Daddy have to say?”

  “Well, I told him we got our fall schedules for school in the mail yesterday.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” Lauren has been meaning to take a look at them, but they seem to have gotten lost in the household shuffle.

  “When I told Daddy I have Mr. Trompin for HR, he said—”

  “Wait, what’s HR?”

  “Homeroom.”

  “Oh. Right.” Lauren wonders why that would be relevant to Nick, but doesn’t necessarily want to admit she doesn’t know. She must have missed something.

  Why does she keep missing things? She needs to do a better job of staying on top of the mail, and the kids—

  “Daddy said to tell Mr. Trompin he says hi and that he misses playing basketball with him.”

  Oh—that explains it. Mr. Trompin is obviously one of the guys Nick used to shoot hoops with over at the park on Sunday mornings.

  “Oh, and Daddy’s coming home tomorrow,” Lucy adds.

  Lauren looks up. “What time?”

  “He didn’t say. It doesn’t matter; we’re not seeing him until the next day. He’s picking us up for brunch.”

  Sunday. Clearly, he’s going to miss half of his officially scheduled weekend visitation with the kids. Not that anyone other than Lauren seems to mind.

  Well, she doesn’t mind, exactly. Now that Lucy and Ryan are home from camp, breathing a little life back into the house, she’s hardly anxious to spend an entire weekend alone here. Still…

  You’d think Nick would want to rush back from the beach to be with them, after so much time apart. You’d think, too, that he’d at least check with Lauren to make sure he’s not screwing up her Saturday plans.

  He would be if she had any.

  Does he assume that she doesn’t?

  Lauren thrusts the knife’s blade into the avocado.

  Maybe she should actually make some plans, just to prove a point.

  When Nick resurfaces, he’s going to get an earful from her—or maybe from her attorney. Yes, let no-nonsense Emerson Snyder—who’d come h
ighly recommended by Trilby, who used him for her own divorce—straighten out Nick.

  After all, you don’t just ignore court orders—and that’s what the custody agreement is…isn’t it?

  Oh geez, who knows?

  Lauren wishes she hadn’t been too distracted by her wounded heart to pay more attention to the legal arrangements. Maybe she’d have a leg to stand on now had she pressed Nick to stick to the visitation schedule from the beginning. But no, she’d gone along with his lackadaisical approach, happy to spare the kids that whole back-and-forth routine—and, all right, happy to have them all to herself.

  “You don’t actually expect us to eat that, do you?”

  Lauren follows Lucy’s gaze to the spongy brown spots on the overripe avocado.

  “No, I don’t expect you to eat that.” She steps on the pedal of the trash can and chucks the whole thing. “Maybe we should go out to dinner. What do you think?”

  “Because of a rotten avocado?”

  Lauren shrugs. “Just because.”

  “Really? We never go out to dinner anymore—I mean, not with you.” As soon as the last words leave her mouth, Lucy looks as though she wishes she could take them back.

  Of course the kids eat out whenever they’re with Nick. Nick is the one with the job—and the one who can’t cook.

  Lauren, who can cook—and in fact was marinating chicken breasts to go with the salad—suddenly doesn’t feel like it tonight. There’s not a breath of breeze at the open window, and the kitchen must be a hundred degrees. An air-conditioned restaurant—and a meal someone else cooks and cleans up after—couldn’t be more appealing.

  “We’ll go down to Mardino’s,” she decides, reaching for Saran wrap to cover the half-made salad. “Can you go help Sadie get her sandals on while I clean this up?”

  “Sadie’s still in her bathing suit. She’s watching The Wizard of Oz on TV.”

  “What?”

  Wait a minute—that’s right. When they got back from the pool, Lauren had told Sadie to go wait for her in the living room and watch television and she’d bring her some dry clothes.

  And then I got busy in the kitchen, and I forgot. Terrific.

  Lauren’s first instinct is to beat herself up over it—and to tell Lucy to forget about the dinner they can’t really afford when there’s perfectly good chicken in the fridge.

  But everyone needs to treat themselves sometimes, right?

  Right.

  And sitting around in a wet swimsuit has never killed anyone, has it?

  Neither—as far as she knows—has a divorce.

  “If you’ll clean up the salad scraps,” she tells Lucy, “I’ll go find something for Sadie to wear.”

  Her daughter eyes the cutting board, littered with vegetable peels, onionskins, and celery strings. “Okay, but we really should compost this stuff, Mom. We all have to do our part to save the planet, you know?”

  Yeah, well, we’ll worry about the planet tomorrow, Lauren wants to tell her. Tonight, let’s just focus on saving ourselves.

  She can hear Ryan, still on the phone with Nick, as she leaves the kitchen.

  “Yeah, and Mom let me have a couple of guys over to watch the Yankees–Red Sox last night,” he’s saying, “and she made us those brownies I love…yeah, with the chocolate chunks… I know they aren’t, but they’re good… Yeah, well, whatever. I have to go, Dad. Wait, here, talk to Sadie first.”

  Maybe, Lauren thinks with a faint smile as she unfastens the doggy gate at the foot of the stairway and heads up to Sadie’s room for her clothes, the tide is turning at last.

  Smiling so hard his face hurts, Garvey Quinn wishes the old lady would release her death grip on his hand. But she’s been grasping it for what feels like five or ten minutes, going on and on about her health problems and her family’s health problems and her neighbors’ health problems, and how she suspects there’s a secret toxic waste dump somewhere around here.

  Garvey isn’t so sure she’s wrong. This industrial western New York town is maybe an hour’s drive from the notorious Love Canal, and look what happened there.

  “Even my cousin’s dog has cancer now,” the woman informs him with more anger than sorrow.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Barbara Ann.”

  He sees a glint of pleasure in her weathered face as she registers that he remembers her name. Yes, and he only heard it once, when she first came up to him, introduced herself, grabbed his hand, and refused to let go.

  Barbara Ann. Of course he remembers. In the grand scheme of things, remembering names is one of the simplest tasks on his daily agenda. He has all kinds of little tricks for doing so.

  Barbara Ann—that’s an easy one.

  Ba-ba-ba…ba-ba-bara Ann.

  Garvey was a Beach Boys fan back in his college days, when all his friends were listening to so-called alternative music. Image-conscious even way back then. Typical conservative Quinn behavior.

  “Nobody’s listening to me!” Barbara Ann rails. “I talked to my doctor and I wrote to the mayor. I even called Eyewitness News. You know what?”

  “No, what?”

  “I got to talk to an assistant reporter, and she said she’d send someone down to check things out, and do you know what?”

  “No, what?” he asks again.

  “She never did.”

  “Is that right.”

  She vigorously nods her scarf-covered, chemo-ravaged head. “Nobody ever does what they say they’re going to do. And that’s the biggest problem with the world these days.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  Garvey studiously keeps his gaze fastened on her lashless eyes beneath a brow-less forehead, fighting the urge to look beyond her toward the closed businesses lining Main Street. Amid plate-glass windows covered with brown paper and “For Lease” signs, all that remains open are an OTB, a rent-to-own center, a tanning salon, and a chicken wing joint.

  There are plenty of problems in Barbara Ann’s world these days. Of that, Garvey Quinn is certain.

  But there are problems in his own world as well—including a potential crisis that churns his stomach if he allows himself to consider it.

  “That’s why we need you to win this nomination.” Barbara Ann squeezes his hand harder. “You have good old-fashioned values and you stand behind your word. You care about the people. You care about our health. Really, that’s what caught my eye when I was reading about your campaign. Your interest in health care issues.”

  Ah, health care.

  Yes, he’s interested.

  “You and I are cut from the same cloth. I may have cancer, but I’m a churchgoing woman, Congressman. I don’t believe stem cell research is the answer and I’m glad you don’t, either.”

  Garvey shakes his head thoughtfully. “Let’s just hope things go our way in the primaries next month, Barbara Ann.”

  “They will if I have anything to say about it.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate the support.”

  “You’re welcome. And if there’s anything you can do to get the press or the government to look into what’s going on here…”

  He nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good.” She sighs heavily. “I’m just so afraid I won’t live to tell what I know about that chemical waste dump.”

  Her words strike a chord with him.

  Somewhere, someone is probably hoping that you won’t, Barbara Ann.

  But who knows if that’s true in her case?

  Just because it’s true in his own…

  He needs to get his hands on that file before the truth comes out and ruins him.

  “It was very good to meet you, Barbara Ann,” he says, with practiced patience, as if he has all the time in the world for her. For anything.

  “You too, Congressman.” At last, she loosens her grip on his hand. “And thank you. God will bless you for what you do.”

  Let’s hope so, he thinks grimly.

  But at this point, Garvey Quinn nee
ds more than blessings.

  “One more stop,” a campaign assistant tells him as they stride toward the waiting black sedan. “On the way, we need to go over the speech for—”

  “Would you give me a minute, please?” BlackBerry in hand, Garvey scrolls through his new text messages.

  The first is from Caroline.

  Daddy. I miss u. When r u coming home?

  He smiles briefly, then scrolls past it and one from Annie, not bothering to read that just yet.

  Ah, there it is.

  All good. Expect news tonight.

  With a crisp nod of satisfaction, Garvey deletes the text, then tucks his BlackBerry back into his pocket.

  Tonight.

  He just hopes it’s not too late to keep the file from falling into the wrong hands and jeopardizing everything he’s ever worked for, wants…deserves.

  “That reminds me—the lawn needs cutting,” Elsa tells Brett across the table for two at the Bayview Chowder House. They meet here every Friday night: same time, same table, same servers, same crowd, same menu, same wardrobe, even: a polo shirt and chinos for him, a summer dress for Elsa.

  Funny that a woman who once considered herself an adventurer could take such comfort in predictability.

  Brett looks up inquisitively from the crab claw he was about to tackle. “We were talking about whether we’ll get home in time to catch the beginning of the Yankees–Red Sox game. How does that remind you that the lawn needs cutting?”

  She backtracks through her thought process—which, as usual, was partly on the conversation, and partly on Jeremy, who is perpetually alive in the back of her mind.

  Now isn’t a good time to bring up their lost son.

  Is there ever a good time?

  Not as far as Brett is concerned. It isn’t that he doesn’t care. It’s just that he doesn’t like to dwell on their tragic past—not, she suspects, as much for his own peace of mind as for Elsa’s. Ever protective of her, Brett treads warily around the topic of Jeremy, and only when forced.

  “I don’t know what made me think of it,” she tells her husband with a shrug. “It just popped into my head.”

  Brett shrugs, too. “I’ll get to it over the weekend.”

  She nods, but she doubts he will. Mowing the lawn isn’t his thing—part of the reason he wasn’t crazy about buying a house when they moved back to Connecticut.