Everybody laughed, although Steve’s laugh was muted and his hazel eyes were as lifeless and hard as stones.
“Your turn, Becky,” Rain said.
“I’m sorry, everyone. I’ve had this terrible headache all afternoon, and it seems to be getting worse.” Tears clouded her eyes. She made no move to hide them or brush them aside. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, pushing back her chair and getting to her feet.
“Oh, sit down,” Steve said. “You’re fine. Don’t be such a prima donna.”
“Fuck you.” Becky turned and stomped away.
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“Shouldn’t you go after her?” Fletcher asked Steve as he calmly finished off the last of his champagne.
“What—you think I’m as crazy as she is?”
“I should go check on the kids,” Caroline said, as eager to get away as Becky had been.
“Hurry back.” Hunter stood to kiss her cheek before she left.
“Oh. So sweet,” Caroline heard Rain say as she was walking away.
An elevator was waiting, its doors open, when Caroline reached the far side of the lobby. She stepped inside and pressed the button for the sixth floor. So far the evening had proved less than stellar: first the mix-up with the babysitter, then her guilt at leaving the kids alone, followed by her brother and sister-in-law’s unpleasant bickering. That they no longer seemed to care who heard them was not a good sign. Caroline exited the elevator, doubting her brother’s marriage would survive the year, let alone a decade.
She hurried down the long corridor, convinced with each step that she heard her children’s anguished cries bouncing off the walls. But when she opened the door to her suite, she heard nothing except the reassuring hum of silence. She tiptoed into their bedroom, pausing in the doorway for her eyes to adjust to the dark, then moved toward Michelle’s bed.
The child lay sleeping on her side, her mouth partly open, the covers bunched awkwardly around her waist, her Wonder Woman doll trapped inside their folds. Caroline carefully extricated the doll and drew the sheet up over her daughter’s shoulders, depositing the doll on the pillow next to her head. You’re such an angel when you sleep, she thought, fighting the urge to kiss her cheek. If only you could save some of that sweetness for when you’re awake.
She swiveled toward Samantha’s crib and leaned over its side, a deep sigh escaping her lungs.
Samantha lay on her back, her little arms raised above her head and bent at the elbows, as if she had literally surrendered to sleep. Hunter was right, she thought. I’ve been silly to worry.
The phone rang, its shrill sound a bayonet slicing through the stillness. Caroline bolted for the living room, grabbing the offending object before it could ring again and pressing it tight against her ear. “Hello?” She should have phoned the front desk, told them to hold all calls. What if the phone had rung when she wasn’t around? What if it had woken up the children? What if they’d cried out for her? What if they’d panicked when she hadn’t come running?
“Is this a bad time?” asked the voice on the other end. “You sound peculiar.”
“Mother?” Caroline could barely hear her own voice over the beating of her heart. She thought of the conversation at dinner and suppressed a shudder. Was it possible her mother had sensed they’d been talking about her? She’d always claimed to have eyes in the back of her head, and ears everywhere, that nothing ever escaped her. When Caroline was little, this thought used to terrify her. If she was being honest, it still did. “Is everything all right?”
“Do you care?”
“What do you mean? Of course I care.”
“Is that why I haven’t heard from you all week?”
“Well, I…”
“I’m not complaining, you understand. Just stating facts. I know you’re very busy partying. At least I have one child who is considerate of his mother’s feelings.”
That’s because he’s still laboring under the misconception that you have any, Caroline thought. “Steve’s a good son,” she said. A good son and a lousy husband.
“Too bad you didn’t have boys.”
Caroline almost laughed, remembering her mother’s spontaneous outburst when she’d phoned from her hospital bed to tell her of Samantha’s birth. “Another stinking girl!” her mother had exclaimed.
“I just called to wish you a happy anniversary,” she said now.
A wave of guilt swept over Caroline. She was being too hard on her mother. The woman wasn’t going to change. It was up to Caroline to change the way she reacted to her. She had to be more generous, less judgmental. “Thank you.”
“I have to say I’m surprised. I thought Hunter would be bored to tears by now.”
This time Caroline did laugh, although the sound was muted and caught in her throat. You can’t make this stuff up, she thought. “I’m sorry—are you saying I’m boring?”