book event at the Margaret Mitchell House—it’s only a few blocks away—and then come back to my place for dessert or something,” Claire offered.
There was a lot of excitement and chatter over the idea until someone pulled out her phone to calculate the mileage.
“We could draw straws for who would be the designated driver,” Wendy said.
“Drivers, you mean,” said Amanda. “If we all went, we’d need more than one vehicle.”
They looked at each other calculating their odds of not only having to stay sober but drive home in the dark on unfamiliar roads.
“I’ll send you all a link to the Margaret Mitchell website and we can put something on the calendar,” Claire said as if she thought this might actually happen.
“That sounds perfect.” Amanda gave her a hug and handed her a plastic-wrapped slice of cake. “Drive carefully.”
“I will.”
There were more hugs and some halfhearted promises to come into town for lunch or shopping. She said good-bye and couldn’t help noticing that others who had said they were leaving hung back in twos or threes to talk about the next day’s carpool or some event at the middle or high school—just as Claire once would have done. She walked out to her car alone.
All was quiet in River Run. On a whim she turned left instead of right and drove slowly past their old house; the one she’d worked so hard to hold on to. There were lights on in the back family room and in the master bedroom upstairs. Out on the grass a tricycle lay on its side. A plastic orange-and-yellow coupe sat “parked” at the top of the driveway, its door hanging open. It was so strange to think of others living in
their
house.
She felt like a disembodied spirit with one foot in the old life and one in the new but belonging in neither. She picked up her cell phone and called Hailey, who had anchored her life for so long. Even if she’d stayed here, without her daughter to revolve around, her life would have been permanently altered. She would have still felt the emptiness that yawned at her center.
The call went to voicemail and Claire pressed the phone tight to her ear the better to hear her daughter’s voice. “Hi, sweetie,” she said after the tone. “I’m just on my way . . . home . . . from book club.” She hesitated. “Everybody asked about you. And it was great to see them. But weird, too, you know?”
She drove south on Alpharetta Highway and took the Northridge ramp onto Highway 400 South. “I’ll be in the car for the next thirty minutes or so if you want to call back. Or we can talk tomorrow.” She swallowed around a ridiculously large lump that rose in her throat. “I love you. And I miss you.”
Merging onto the highway, she was surprised as she always was by the amount of traffic that whizzed by. She wondered where all these people were going and had the horrible feeling that every single one of them was going home to someone. Everyone but her.
Quietly, she disconnected and set the cell phone in the empty cup holder. Carefully, she arranged both of her hands on the wheel and clasped it tightly, trying to hold on to some small part of herself—and her life—that still looked familiar.
CHAPTER SEVEN
B ROOKE WAS HALF OUT OF HER CHURCH CLOTHES Sunday when the doorbell rang. She was trying to yank the zipper of her dress back up when a key sounded in the lock. The girls’ shrieks of joy and the happy yips that Darcy began to emit explained the lack of a call from the security desk. Although Zachary no longer lived here, he had decided the fact that he paid the mortgage entitled him to keep and use his key. She didn’t like the idea that he could simply “pop in” any time he felt like it, but since his interest in the three of them hovered around zero this rarely happened. The key had become one more thing that wasn’t worth fighting for.
Unable to get the zipper back up or her one remaining shoe off, she limped out to the foyer with her arms clasped
There was a lot of excitement and chatter over the idea until someone pulled out her phone to calculate the mileage.
“We could draw straws for who would be the designated driver,” Wendy said.
“Drivers, you mean,” said Amanda. “If we all went, we’d need more than one vehicle.”
They looked at each other calculating their odds of not only having to stay sober but drive home in the dark on unfamiliar roads.
“I’ll send you all a link to the Margaret Mitchell website and we can put something on the calendar,” Claire said as if she thought this might actually happen.
“That sounds perfect.” Amanda gave her a hug and handed her a plastic-wrapped slice of cake. “Drive carefully.”
“I will.”
There were more hugs and some halfhearted promises to come into town for lunch or shopping. She said good-bye and couldn’t help noticing that others who had said they were leaving hung back in twos or threes to talk about the next day’s carpool or some event at the middle or high school—just as Claire once would have done. She walked out to her car alone.
All was quiet in River Run. On a whim she turned left instead of right and drove slowly past their old house; the one she’d worked so hard to hold on to. There were lights on in the back family room and in the master bedroom upstairs. Out on the grass a tricycle lay on its side. A plastic orange-and-yellow coupe sat “parked” at the top of the driveway, its door hanging open. It was so strange to think of others living in
their
house.
She felt like a disembodied spirit with one foot in the old life and one in the new but belonging in neither. She picked up her cell phone and called Hailey, who had anchored her life for so long. Even if she’d stayed here, without her daughter to revolve around, her life would have been permanently altered. She would have still felt the emptiness that yawned at her center.
The call went to voicemail and Claire pressed the phone tight to her ear the better to hear her daughter’s voice. “Hi, sweetie,” she said after the tone. “I’m just on my way . . . home . . . from book club.” She hesitated. “Everybody asked about you. And it was great to see them. But weird, too, you know?”
She drove south on Alpharetta Highway and took the Northridge ramp onto Highway 400 South. “I’ll be in the car for the next thirty minutes or so if you want to call back. Or we can talk tomorrow.” She swallowed around a ridiculously large lump that rose in her throat. “I love you. And I miss you.”
Merging onto the highway, she was surprised as she always was by the amount of traffic that whizzed by. She wondered where all these people were going and had the horrible feeling that every single one of them was going home to someone. Everyone but her.
Quietly, she disconnected and set the cell phone in the empty cup holder. Carefully, she arranged both of her hands on the wheel and clasped it tightly, trying to hold on to some small part of herself—and her life—that still looked familiar.
CHAPTER SEVEN
B ROOKE WAS HALF OUT OF HER CHURCH CLOTHES Sunday when the doorbell rang. She was trying to yank the zipper of her dress back up when a key sounded in the lock. The girls’ shrieks of joy and the happy yips that Darcy began to emit explained the lack of a call from the security desk. Although Zachary no longer lived here, he had decided the fact that he paid the mortgage entitled him to keep and use his key. She didn’t like the idea that he could simply “pop in” any time he felt like it, but since his interest in the three of them hovered around zero this rarely happened. The key had become one more thing that wasn’t worth fighting for.
Unable to get the zipper back up or her one remaining shoe off, she limped out to the foyer with her arms clasped
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