“Baby, I don’t know what else I can do to reassure you besides put a GPS tracking device on me—”
“Would you?” she joked, wiping away more tears.
He gave her a sharp look. “No.”
“I was kidding,” she said.
“I don’t think you were. But maybe it’s better if we don’t say a lot to the kids right now. There’s no need to upset them. They’ve had enough change for the time being. Let them think I’m traveling and we’ll make sure I see them when I’m in town. And then, at the end of the season, we’ll sit down and come up with a custody plan and how we’ll share them.”
Sarah swallowed. “So you’re not coming back to the house?”
“I’ll stay at a hotel for now, and then sometime down the road, when you’re not there, I’ll move my things out.”
So it really was all over.
Impossible.
Twenty-one
Sarah couldn’t get out of bed. She told the kids she had the flu. The truth was, it’d been four days since she’d last seen Boone, four days since she’d last talked to him, and she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t function.
Her head told her this separation was for the best.
Her heart refused to accept it.
Sarah knew that the only way she’d ever have peace was if she were on her own, away from Boone. She knew that eventually it would be easier, once she’d learned to live without him. It was just a matter of getting to the point where she could think of him without feeling like she was dying.
And the truth was, he could move on without her. He’d be fine. He was a man. Men compartmentalized. Within a year or two he’d have someone else. Be in love with someone else.
But the idea of him loving anyone the way he’d once loved her made her physically ill.
Sarah rushed into the bathroom, threw up into the toilet, and then crawled back into bed.
She cried, her face buried in her pillow. She was an addict. And Boone was her crack.
Reason told her it wasn’t healthy to love someone this much. It wasn’t normal to need someone this much. She had to stop this, regain control, regain independence.
Move forward.
Reclaim her life.
And she would.
She would.
As soon as she could stop crying.
* * *
They were supposed to go to her dad’s house on Sunday for his birthday, but at the last second Sarah couldn’t. She called Tommy and Cass, telling them she was sick and needed to go back to bed, and they came and picked up the kids, taking them to San Francisco for her dad’s birthday party.
While Cass ushered the kids to the car, Tommy climbed the stairs to the master bedroom to check on his sister for himself.
“You okay?” he asked, from the doorway.
Sarah nodded. “Just queasy. I’ll feel better sleeping.”
“Is it a stomach flu or . . . ?”
Sarah stared at him, confused.
He sighed impatiently. “You’re not pregnant again, are you?”
“No!”
“Okay. Just checking.” He hesitated another moment. “Is Boone coming to the house after the game today? He’d said he was, when I talked to him yesterday.”
Sarah’s heart flip-flopped. “You talked to him? What did he say?”
“He wanted to know what Dad wanted for his birthday. Why? Were we not supposed to talk?”
“No. That’s . . . good.” She swallowed, pulled the covers up over her legs. “I think I’ll just rest. Thanks for taking the kids.”
“No problem. And if you need Boone here, after the game, just give me a call and I’ll drive the kids home.”
“Thank you.”
It was five when Sarah got a text from Tommy. We’re bringing the kids home with us. We’ll be there between six and six thirty.
Sarah dragged herself out of bed on Monday to take Ella to her swim lesson and Brennan to a friend’s house to play. She was back home with the kids by noon, and she crawled into bed for a nap, and slept for hours, only waking when Brennan asked her to make him either lunch or dinner because he was hungry.
She told him she would, soon.
They had a fight about frozen pizza.
She was stepping into the shower to try to wake up when Brennan screamed, “Fire.”
Sarah tore down the stairs and there was a small fire, but it was limited to the microwave. Brennan had tried to microwave a personal pizza. Unfortunately, he’d wrapped it in foil.
Fire contained, disaster averted, Sarah made the kids turkey sandwiches for dinner, put on a TV show, and stumbled around picking up clothes, running a load of laundry, doing dishes, killing time until she put the kids to bed.
She went back to bed once they were sleeping in theirs, and she was lying there in the dark, thinking but not thinking, when she heard a door open and close and then footsteps on the stairs.