Jase shuts his eyes, rubs one hand on George’s little pointy-sharp shoulder blade. “Promise.”
But I can see that George doesn’t believe him.
Worn out, Patsy falls asleep in her high chair, her rosy cheek drooping into a smear of tomato sauce. George and Harry watch a very unlikely movie about a bunch of baby dinosaurs having adventures in the tropics. Alice heads back to the ICU. I call Mom to tell her I won’t be home for dinner. She answers from some loud place with lots of laughter in the background. “That’s okay, sweetheart, I’m at a meet-and-greet at the Tidewater anyway. So many more people showed up than we expected. It’s a huge success!”
Her voice is even and cheerful, no tension there at all. It must be a coincidence, has to be, that bump in the night and Mr. Garrett. There can’t be any connection. If I brought it up, I’d sound crazy.
She raised us to be conscientious. The worst thing Tracy and I could do was lie: “What you did was wrong, but lying about it made it a hundred times worse” was a speech so familiar, we could have set it to music.
Chapter Forty-one
Dishes clatter and crash when I call in to Breakfast Ahoy to quit, the next day. I can hear Ernesto swearing about the unusually big morning rush as I tell Felipe that I won’t be coming back in. He’s incredulous. Yeah, I know, it’s completely unlike me to quit without notice. Much less at the height of the summer season. But the Garretts need me.
“No creo que se pueda volver y recuperar su trabajo,” Felipe snaps, moved to his native Spanish before he translates. “Don’t think you can come marching back in and get your job back, missy. You go out now, and you go out for keeps.”
I suppress a stab of sorrow. The relentless pace and energy of Breakfast Ahoy have been an antidote to the long stretches of stillness and tedium at the B&T. But I can’t escape the B&T—Mom would hear about that right away.
Jase protests, but I ignore him.
“Getting rid of that uniform? Long overdue,” I tell him. More importantly, quitting Breakfast Ahoy frees up three mornings of my week.
“I hate that this changes your life too.”
But nothing like the way things are changing for the Garretts. Mrs. Garrett practically lives at the hospital. She comes home to feed Patsy, snatch a few hours of sleep, and have long, ominous-sounding conversations on the phone with the hospital billing department. Alice, Joel, and Jase trade off spending nights with their dad. George wets his bed constantly and Patsy hates the bottle with a mighty passion. Harry starts swearing more often than Tim, and Andy spends all her time on Facebook and reading, rereading Twilight again and again.
The night air in my room is warm and close, suffocating, and I wake, gasping for cool air and water. I head downstairs toward to the kitchen, stopping when I hear Mom. “It doesn’t feel right, Clay.”
“We’ve gone over this. How many glasses of wine had you had?”
Her voice is high and shaky. “Three—four, maybe? I don’t know. Not all of them, anyway, just a few sips here and there.”
“Over the legal limit, Grace. This would end your career. Do you understand? No one knows. It’s done. Move on.”
“Clay, I—”
“Look at what’s at stake here. You can do more good to more people if you get reelected. This was a blip—a misstep. Everybody in public life has ’em. You’re luckier than most—yours wasn’t public.”
Mom’s ringtone sounds. “It’s Malcolm from the office,” she says. “I’d better take it.”
“Hold on,” Clay says. “Listen to yourself, sugar. Listen. Your first thought is for your duty. Right in the middle of a personal crisis. You really want to deprive people of that dedication? Think about it. Is that the right thing to do?”
I hear the tap of Mom’s heels moving into her office, and I start to edge back up the stairs.
“Samantha,” Clay says quietly. “I know you’re there.”
I freeze. He can’t know. The stairs are carpeted, I’m barefoot.
“You’re reflected in the hall mirror.”
“I was just…thirsty and I…”
“Heard all that,” Clay concludes.
“I didn’t…” My voice trails off.
He comes around the corner of the stairs, leaning against the stairway wall, arms folded, a casual stance, but there’s something unnaturally still about him.
“I didn’t come here by chance,” he tells me softly. He’s backlit by the kitchen light and I can’t quite make out his face. “I’d heard about your mother. Your mama…she’s good, Samantha. The party’s interested. She’s got the whole package. Looks, style, substance…she could be big. National. Easy.”