AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ChapterThree
Claire, Russel, Gail, and Abby clambered into the family van at one in the morning on the first day of 2024. Claire had drunk a few too many glasses of champagne, and her ears still rang from the celebration they’d left behind at the Sunrise Cove. Effervescent from their engagement, Wes and Beatrice were still pouring champagne inside, Susan and Scott ballroom danced, and even Amanda, who was normally the more conscientious of the Sheridans, was still awake, her arm slung around her husband Sam’s waist.
“It was a great party.” Claire glanced back toward Gail and Abby, who remained quiet. Had this been any other year, it would have been loud and raucous back there, with the twins gossiping about what had happened that night, the “bad fashion” they’d seen family members wearing, or the ridiculous stories their grandpa Trevor had told them. But Gail stared out the window, her arms crossed firmly over her chest. Abby looked at Gail, confusion etched across her face.
“Didn’t you think it was a fabulous party?” Claire pushed it. “Abby? Did you try the salmon puffs?”
Abby jumped and forced her eyes to her mother. “Um? I didn’t.”
Russel touched Claire’s thigh as he drove them safely back home. “They’re tired,” he said softly. “It’s only been an hour long, but it’s been a hard year so far.”
Russel pulled into the driveway as the garage door yawned open and swallowed the van whole. Even before he cut the engine, Gail jumped out and hurried inside. Abby scampered after her, leaving Claire and Russel alone in the van. Claire’s heart pounded with nerves.
“They’re just having a bad night,” Russel said again, lacing his fingers through Claire’s.
“I just hate the look on Gail’s face,” Claire murmured. “She looks like she’s in so much pain.” She turned to gaze at Russel, whom she’d kissed at midnight for the twenty-fifth year in a row. “Do you think it’s a guy? Maybe someone at college?”
“Honestly, it could be anything,” Russel said. “Let’s have a nightcap upstairs and hit the hay. Everything will be brighter in the morning.”
But things weren’t brighter the following morning, nor any of the ones after that. There was an icy quality to the air in Claire’s house, one that made her inclined to tiptoe around to avoid reproachful glances from her twins. It didn’t seem so long ago that the three of them had watched rom-coms and painted their toenails and fingernails, laughing at the silly decisions of the characters on-screen. “That is so unrealistic,” Gail had said ofSerendipity, the John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale film that believed in the power of destiny. And Abby and Claire had giggled and agreed.
Now, the twins refused to eat at the table with Claire and Russel. They kept to their separate rooms, with Gail playing music louder than she ever had. The floorboards rattled.
Once, Claire got up the nerve to demand that everyone eat at the dining room table “as a family.” Abby and Russel sat in their normal chairs, staring at Gail’s empty one as the food got colder and colder. Claire stomped upstairs, anger brimming, and told Gail through the door that if she didn’t come downstairs, she couldn’t eat at all. Gail called back, “Don’t care!” And that broke Claire’s heart even more. Ultimately, she caved and brought Gail a plate around nine-thirty, unable to let her daughter go hungry. To Charlotte, she texted:
Maybe I’m weak? I just don’t know what to do.
On the night before Claire planned to drive Gail and Abby back to the University of Massachusetts, Charlotte and Rachel swung by with take-out quesadillas, tacos, and chimichangas. Rachel looked stricken, her eyes to the ceiling as Gail played angry punk music upstairs.
“Can I go upstairs, Aunt Claire?” Rachel asked nervously.
“Why don’t you take Gail’s and Abby’s food up with you?” Claire suggested. She knew the twins would refuse to come downstairs. Her private hope was that Rachel would knock some sense into them.
As soon as Rachel disappeared upstairs, Claire crumpled into Charlotte. “They’ve hardly spoken at all since New Year’s Eve.”
“Oh, no.” Charlotte sighed and poured them both glasses of wine from a bottle of Cab she’d brought over. “I guess tomorrow they’ll be forced to deal with each other. They live in the same dorm room, for crying out loud.”
“It makes me really sad that they can’t deal with their problems here,” Claire said softly. “We get so little time as a family these days. I imagined a cozy time together, eating chocolate and watching movies.”
“It’s hard to translate to teenagers how precious time is,” Charlotte agreed. “Rachel spent all afternoon yesterday video chatting with some boy she likes from college. I wanted to go shopping! I wanted to have those soul-affirming conversations you’re supposed to have as daughters and mothers!”
Claire tried to laugh this off. She removed a tortilla chip from the paper bag and dipped it in queso. Upstairs, Gail turned the music down. Maybe Rachel was begging her to listen to reason. Maybe everything would be okay.
“I meant to ask you,” Charlotte said, snapping her fingers. “What did you think of Rina running out of the party the other night?”
Claire dug through her champagne-laced memories. Not long before midnight, Rina had walked into the bistro with her coat on, whispered something in Steve’s ear, hugged him, and then darted out without saying goodbye to anyone else. Nobody had been brave enough to ask Steve what was going on.
“Do you think she ended things with Steve?” Claire asked. “Just like that?”
“We don’t even know if anything was happening between them.”
Claire bit her lower lip. “Steve isn’t talking to you about it anymore?”
Because Charlotte had lost Jason in a fishing accident, Steve had leaned heavily on her after Laura’s death, asking her for guidance as he waded through the murky depths of being a widower.
“We haven’t been as close since I left.” Charlotte sighed. She put down her glass of wine and reached across the table to touch Claire’s hand. “And I know we’ve been a little bit distant, too. I want to get better about that.”
“You’ve been busy. You’re building a new life. I know that.”
