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  No such luck.

  Her skirt fell to her ankles but her panties were still bunched around her thighs as she snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”

  Behind her, Nick blew out a long, slow breath. She didn’t look at him, but cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder as she eased up her panties.

  “Bess?” He sounded as if he’d expected someone else.

  “Andy.” The scrape of a chair behind her distracted her, but Bess kept her eyes on the refrigerator and the takeout menus hung there by magnets shaped like flip-f lops. “What’s up?”

  “It’s about the boys.”

  Bess stifled a groan. That long-ago summer when she’d talked with Andy on the phone, she’d sometimes stretched the cord as long as it could go in order to speak to him with some semblance of privacy. She was tempted to do that now, too, but didn’t.

  “What about them?”

  “They’re going to have to come to you earlier.”

  “But…I thought you were going to take them to the Grand Canyon!” The words slipped out, sounding more petulant than she’d intended, and Bess cursed herself for giving Andy any reason to use his favorite patronizing tone with her.

  Which of course he did. “Bess, c’mon. You know they’ll have a better time at the beach.”

  “That’s not the point, Andy.”

  Andy gave a deep, long-suffering sigh. “What is the point?”

  Bess dug her fingernails into her palm and mentally counted to five before answering. “The boys are going to finish out the school year with you and then you’ll take two weeks for that rafting trip. Then they’ll come here, with me, after the Fourth of July. That’s what we talked about, Andy.”

  “Yeah, well, about that…”

  Bess waited as anger boiled up her throat like bile. Worse than bile. Worse than acid.

  “I was thinking they could get out early. Skip those last couple of days. They’ve only got half days anyway.”

  “Absolutely not!” Bess forced her fingers to uncurl. “Whose idea was that? Theirs or yours?”

  His silence told her it was neither, and her stomach lurched along with the anger. “Never mind. No. The boys will finish school there. Connor’s got his graduation, Andy. You’re not going to take that away from him, are you? What might be his last chance to see his friends?”

  Andy sighed. “Fine. But the trip will have to be postponed. I got offered the chance to go to a conference in Palm Springs, and I really need to go.”

  “Need to? Or want to?”

  “Bess, be fair. What do you care, anyway? I thought you’d love to have the boys earlier.”

  Bess glanced at Nick, who watched her without expression. “They’re looking forward to that trip, Andy. You can’t disappoint them that way.”

  “I already talked with Connor about it. He’s fine. Says he wants to get down there and start earning some money.”

  “And Robbie?” Robbie was the more sensitive of her sons, the one who strove more valiantly and with less success for his father’s approval.

  “He’ll be fine with it, too.”

  Of course Andy hadn’t talked to Robbie about canceling the trip. And it would be canceled. Bess knew her husband too well to know any different. She put the phone against her forehead for a moment while she tried to keep her cool.

  “Obviously you’ve made up your mind,” she said after a moment. “Fine. The boys will come here to me after Connor’s graduation party instead of the end of June. You’re right. I’ll love to have them.”

  “Good. I’ll let you talk to Robbie.”

  Before Bess could protest she heard Andy yelling Robbie’s name. A minute after that, her son said, “Mom?”

  “Hey, honey.”

  “What’s up?” He sounded worried. He sounded that way too much, and Bess’s heart hurt at having to disappoint him again.

  “Honey, Dad just told me he’s got to go to a conference in Palm Springs. So you and Connor are coming to me right after school lets out.”

  Silence. Robbie breathed into the phone. Bess tapped her forehead with the phone again, fighting the thickness of emotion in her throat.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I’m sure Dad wouldn’t cancel the trip if this conference wasn’t important.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t cancel our trip if she wasn’t going to the other one.” Robbie’s voice dripped acid.

  That her son knew about the “her” was worse than Bess finding it out herself. Her fingers clenched into her palm again, finding the grooves left from her nails still there. “Robbie—”

  “Never mind, Mom.” His voice shook a little bit, but he got it together. “It’s okay. Me and Conn’ll be down after school. Right. Fine. Cool.”

  Bess forced her voice to brightness. “Hey. Remember I told you about the place I used to work? Sugarland? Well, I know the owner and he said he’d be glad to give you and Connor jobs this summer. So how about that?”

  Robbie made an effort at sounding pleased that didn’t fool her. “That’ll be good. Conn was worried about finding something if we didn’t get there right away this summer. Me, too. You know, for college and stuff.”

  “Don’t you worry about college, Robbie. Connor, neither. Okay?” Bess glanced at Nick again, but he’d left the table with the chair pushed back. Her stomach dropped, but in the next second she heard him moving around in the living room. So he hadn’t completely gone. “Sorry, honey?” Robbie had said something while she was distracted.

  “Never mind.”

  “No, Robbie. Tell me. It’s just there’s a storm here and I didn’t hear you.”

  “I said, can’t I come earlier? Like Dad wants. Can’t I skip the last few days of school?”

  “No, Robbie. You can’t.” Bess glanced into the living room and saw Nick’s shadow stretching long. “You have to finish up.”

  Another long beat of silence moved through the telephone line, until Robbie sighed loudly. “Okay.”

  “I miss you,” Bess said. “You and Connor both.”

  “How about Dad?” Robbie asked astutely. “Do you miss him?”

  “I miss you and Connor,” Bess repeated, and when Robbie hung up she wondered who’d taught him to be so cruel. If he’d learned it from Andy…or from her.

  CHAPTER 12

  Then

  It was Andy’s turn to call Bess, but so far the phone hadn’t rung. She’d told him what time she’d be home from work, and warned the family members staying in the house that week she was expecting a call, but though she’d kept her shower brief and dressed quickly, the phone hadn’t rung. He was only twenty minutes past the time she’d expected him, but that was long enough.

  Bess joined the rummy game and played without paying much attention, thus actually coming out ahead in the end. Since they were only betting pretzel sticks it wasn’t a big deal, but her uncle Ben kept calling her a card shark and that led to many impressions of the old Saturday Night Live skit “Land Shark,” which in turn led to more recent imitations of Chris Farley’s “in a van down by the river!” which in turn had Bess laughing so hard she snorted soda through her nose and had to leave the table.

  She really had a wonderful family, and it was great she didn’t have to pay rent, she thought as she washed her face in the kitchen sink. But she did wish there weren’t always so many of them. She was waiting for the day when they told her she was going to have to share her room and bed with someone because of overflow, but so far it hadn’t happened.

  She went to sleep when they all did, even Uncle Ben, who claimed insomnia and liked to fall asleep in front of the TV instead of in bed. Andy still hadn’t called. She’d left three messages over the past two weeks. She’d sent a letter, too, and a postcard. Andy had sent nothing.

  When the phone did at last ring, Bess had fallen into a sleep so deep she dreamed about alarms blaring, and knocked her clock from the nightstand trying to turn it off. Blinking, she rose up in the darkness, muttering, and tore herself free from the tangle of s