CHAPTER ONE

A SPECIAL DAY

Claire hung up the phone with a loud sigh. She kneaded her forehead with the heels of her hands and eyed the clock mounted at the front of the office. It wasn’t even noon yet, and already they were trying to take her there. They wouldn’t like it if Claire went there—they complained to her supervisor the last time, as a matter of fact—but still they liked to push her buttons.

Hospitals had to be the most conniving corporations ever. There were so many charges and charge types and room types. The average medical billing professional might get befuddled and approve everything in her in-box. But after six years in the business, Claire knew how to spot bogus expenditures: Maybe Mr. Murphy did have two MRI’s and a chest X-ray done on the same night, but Provincial Insurance wasn’t paying for it—not if Claire Hudgens had anything to do with it.

She took out her ink pad and stamped the file on her desk with big red letters.

DENIED

That felt good, so she hit it again.

DENIED!

She was about to get jiggy with it, like the post office does when you send a registered letter, but a co-worker came and stood behind her computer.

“I swear, sometimes you act like that’s your money.” Rebecca was tall and thin, a couple years away from the big 4-0. She had long, blonde hair; it was beautiful, but she hid it away in a bun on most days. She usually wore wire-rimmed glasses, no makeup, and loose-fitting dresses to work. But Becky wasn’t the nerd-type her appearance suggested.

“They can’t give me an explanation for these charges,” Claire informed her. “Who the hell gets two MRI’s in one day—and a chest X-ray?”

Becky shrugged. “You never know what could be happening.” Today she had on a simple blue dress; it was a one-piece with a sash around the waist and buttons down the middle. She was attractive, but there was so much more she could do to spice up her appearance. Claire thought she would change up her style a little after her divorce, but that was over a year ago, and Becky was still Plain Jane.

Claire frowned at her. “Girl, don’t tell me you’re over there approving mess like this.”

Becky poked out her lips. “We can’t all be employee of the month.”

Claire grinned. “That only happened to me twice.”

“Twice this year,” Becky said and rolled her eyes.

“You going to lunch?” Claire asked, noticing the purse crooked under her friend’s arm.

“We’re going out to lunch,” Becky said with a smile. “I’m taking you out for your anniversary.”

“Aww. That’s sweet. I wish George’s memory was as good as yours.”

“You always remembered my anniversaries,” Becky said, and then a pained look took over her face. Claire was lost for words for a second, but Becky started to smile. “Gotcha.”

Claire put a hand to her chest. “Girl, I thought we were going to have to break out the Kleenex again!”

Becky chuckled. “You ready?”

Claire looked around her desk. “I guess. Where we going?”

“Where do you want to go?” Becky smiled down at her pleasantly. She had cute dimples and nice teeth. Only the crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes gave up her age.

“I don’t know,” Claire said.

“Where are you going with George?”

“I’m making him lobster,” Claire said, “on a bed of wild rice with skewered jumbo shrimp on the side.”

“Ooh. I like lobster.”

“Sorry. I already sent out my invites,” Claire teased. “You should have RSVP’d.”

“Let’s get Chinese,” Becky said.

“That sounds great.” Claire stood and retrieved her purse from the lowest drawer on her desk.

“You’re not going to wear that to your dinner tonight, are you?” Becky asked.

Today Claire had on gray slacks with a white blouse. She was tall for a woman, teetering over five feet, ten inches. She was also slightly overweight. Like her friend, Claire’s fashion sense settled into a mediocre groove after sixteen years of marriage. She had long, beautiful legs, but rarely did her co-workers see them. Claire wore her shoulder-length hair down, but she never curled it, braided it, teased it, or colored it.

Claire was a beautiful woman, with brown skin like molasses. She had large eyes, a thin nose, and full lips. Her dark eyes were deep and alluring, but she didn’t use mascara or fake lashes to draw attention to them. But then again, she was thirty-six years old with three kids and a great husband. Who was there to impress?

“I got some new outfits,” she told her nosey friend. “I’ll tell you about them at lunch.”

The ladies left the office in good spirits. Becky was parked closest, so they climbed into her ex-husband’s four-by-four rather than take Claire’s Lexus. Inwardly, Claire hated riding in her friend’s bigfoot Ford; the wheels were almost waist-tall, there seemed to be a lot of open space between the axles and the frame, and you had to stretch like a gymnast just to get in the damned thing.

But Becky’s divorce was as bitter as they come. She got the house, the kids, and her husband’s new toy—and damned if she wasn’t going to enjoy all of it to the fullest. Becky didn’t even have to back out of her parking spot anymore: She simply threw that bad boy in DRIVE and climbed over the parking block like she was at the motocross. Claire latched her seatbelt and said a quick prayer like she always did when Becky was behind the wheel.

* * *

They chose to dine at the Lotus restaurant because the self-serve buffet there worked best with their brief lunch hour. Midway through their meal, Claire pushed her crab Rangoon to the side and pulled a magazine clipping from her purse. She unfolded it and laid it out in front of her friend. Becky peered down her nose, and her eyes grew wide.

“Wow. Where is that from?”

“Victoria’s Secret,” Claire said. “I ordered it online. It just came in yesterday.”

Becky sucked a broiled shrimp from its shell and chewed it eagerly. “Have you tried it on yet?”

“Yeah. Last night.”

“And?…”

“And what?”

Becky looked from the curvaceous model on the ad to her average-sized friend across the table. “Does it still look like, like that?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Claire said. “I’m just as fine as that lady.”

Becky choked a little on her shrimp. She put a hand to her mouth and coughed, then took a few swallows of her tea. “Excuse me,” she said, dabbing the corner of her eyes with a napkin.

“I might have a little cellulite on my thighs,” Claire admitted.

“And your arms,” Becky offered.

“What’s wrong with my arms?”

“You know how old ladies get that flab under their triceps?” Becky asked. “When they wave at someone, that meat swings back and forth…”

“My arms do not look like that!”

“No—they don’t,” Becky said with a grin. “I’m just kidding. But you never know what could happen in twenty years, if you let it go.”

Claire bent her arm and felt the skin under there. It still felt tight to her, mostly. “Anything can happen in twenty years,” she muttered.

“And your stomach,” Becky said.

“All right. I do need to do a few crunches.”

“And your butt…”

Claire threw a hand up. “Hold up—George likes every bit of my ass. And what are you attacking me for? This is supposed to be a celebratory lunch!”

Becky chuckled. “I’m just fooling with you, Claire. You know you look good. I wish I had your legs.”

“I wish I had your stomach,” Claire said.

“I wish I was black so people would think my butt looks good,” Becky said.

“Come to my next family reunion,” Claire offered. “You’ll have plenty of fans.” She folded her picture and put it back in her purse. “I got a new dress to wear to dinner, too,” she said.

“What does it look like?”

“It’s red and strapless, tight around the waist, shows off my perky bosoms.”

“Oh, I bet that looks nice.”

“It does, girl. I modeled it for myself last night. I was standing in front of the mirror thinking: Damn, that chick’s hot!”

Becky giggled. “So, what’d you get the colonel this year?”

Claire smiled. It was always hard to shop for her husband. What do you give a man who’d lived in more countries than he had fingers?

Since retiring from the Air Force, George has wanted for nothing that Claire was aware of. His salary at Boeing, coupled with his military pension, left their bank accounts quite full most of the time. George had every trinket imaginable from the golden iPod to multiple DVD screens in his Navigator, but Claire always found something special on gift-giving occasions.

“I had our wedding pictures restored,” she said.

Becky’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“And,” Claire said with a finger in the air, “I got our wedding video re-mastered.”

“That’s great!”

“Not just re-mastered,” Claire went on. “I also went back and got everyone who was there to give a quick little blessing at the end. They say how proud they are that we made it sixteen years, and, you know, a bunch of corny stuff like that.”

“You found everybody?”

“Well, there were some folks I didn’t want to find,” Claire said. “Like my cousin Ray; he damned near ruined the original wedding with his drunk ass. I didn’t put him in the new video. But I got our parents, our brothers and sisters. I got them all with the same backdrop, too, so it looks like they all came at the same time.”

Becky’s mouth was open. “How the hell did you do all of that?”

Claire shook her head. “It took months. It was hard, but it was fun, too. We don’t talk to our families as much as we should. It was good to see everyone again and hear what they all had to say about me and George. You know some of them acted a fool! You put a camera in their face and they think they’re on Oprah.”

Becky laughed. “And you kept all of that a secret?”

“That was the hardest part,” Claire confided. “All of these people started returning my calls—at all hours of the night—and I had to keep making excuses about who it was. You know I’m not the sneaky type, girl. I can’t hardly keep a straight face if I’m lying to someone.”

“He never got suspicious?”

“No. He trusts me. He didn’t even ask who was calling most of the time.”

“You have a great marriage,” Becky said. She reached across the table and held her friend’s hand. “I hope you guys get old and die together.”

“We will,” Claire said without hesitation. She never imagined it any other way.

* * *

The average pencil-pusher at Provincial Insurance worked a regular nine to five, but Claire never stayed later than two-thirty. She didn’t have to work at all. It was actually George’s preference that she didn’t, but being a stay-at-home-mom got a little boring once the last kiddo started school.

When Claire got into medical billing, it was merely an interesting pastime at first, but her drive and diligence separated her from the rat pack right away. Each month she saved the company more money in her five hours than her co-workers did in eight. She could be manager, or at least supervisor by now, but that would mean working more hours. That would mean Nicole, Stacy, and George Jr. would have to ride the bus home from school.

And that was unacceptable.

* * *

Claire pulled to a stop in front of Wedgwood Elementary with ten minutes to spare. She got out and stood under the large awning that shaded the school’s front doors. There were already a dozen parents milling around this area. A woman Claire recognized from the PTA meetings came over and made light conversation. After a few minutes, the bell rang.

Rather than let the kids explode from the building like a kicked ant pile, the students at Wedgewood Elementary had to follow their teachers out in neat, quiet lines. Once outside, they couldn’t leave until their teacher saw a parent.

George’s class was always among the last out of the building. Claire went to speak with his instructor as she always did, and her son rushed from the crowd and grabbed hold of her hand.

“Mama!”

“Hey! What’s going on, man?”

“I planted a lima bean!” he announced, holding up a plastic cup filled with dirt. George was fair-skinned like his father, the color of a sugar cookie. He was a small boy, but he had a big head and large eyes. He wore khaki pants with a white golf shirt, and although all of the children were dressed similarly due to the dress code, Claire thought her boy was the most handsome fourth grader at the school.

“How was he today?” she asked his teacher, Mrs. Flores.

“He’s great,” the woman said immediately. “One of the few I don’t have to worry about—Justin, spit that out! I’m sorry,” she said and turned back to Claire. She put a hand on George’s head. “He’s great. Still don’t have anything bad to say about him.”

“Good,” Claire said with a smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” the teacher said and wiped her brow. She turned away quickly. “Justin! Get over here! No! Right here!”

Claire walked away giggling. She never went to college, but education would have been her major if she had pursued a degree. Sometimes she regretted her decision, but scenes like that reminded her how sweet it was to sit behind a desk and deal with adults for a living.

“Can I get a new game?” George asked on the way back to the car.

“What kind of game?”

“For my Playstation.”

“You got a new game for your birthday.”

“I beat it already.”

“You’ve got another birthday coming sooner or later.”

“What? That’s like, that’s like a year from now!”

“You’ll still want it then,” Claire said with a grin.

“Huh?”

“Maybe this weekend,” she said. “We can get you a used one from GameStop.”

“I hope it doesn’t have a lot of scratches.”

Together, Claire and her husband brought in almost a hundred and fifty thousand a year. Not many children of such well-to-do parents would have to get used toys, but those video games were fifty dollars or more these days. It was hard, but Claire was determined to teach her children the value of a dollar.

“Can I sit in the front?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

The boy rushed ahead of her, but Claire didn’t have to chase him down. She parked with the passenger door next to the curb so he wouldn’t have to go in the street. He was already seated and buckled in by the time Claire caught up.

“Did you make that card for your Daddy?” she asked when she started the car.

“Oh yeah!” George Jr. reached between his legs and ripped open his backpack. After a bit of rustling, he came up with a blue folder. He fumbled through it for half a minute and then produced a single sheet of paper with drawings on it. He handed it to his mother, and Claire immediately cherished it like it was an original Van Gogh.

Anniversary was misspelled, Daddy was as tall as a house, and one of Mommy’s legs was relatively two feet longer than the other, but Claire had never seen anything so precious.

“Aww. This is great. You did this all by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s very good work.”

“I know. I’m going to be an artist when I grow up.”

“I thought you were going to the Air Force like your daddy,” Claire reminded him.

“I am,” George Jr. confirmed. “I’m going to draw pictures from up in my jet.”

Claire put her Lexus in drive and headed for Clarke Middle School. George Jr. chatted the whole way there. He was going to make quite a conversationalist one day—but Claire wasn’t too concerned with the items on his lunch tray and the order he ate them in. She was a good listener, though; she nodded often and said Hmmm every time he stopped for a breath.

* * *

They couldn’t park directly in front of Stacy’s school because of the buses, so Claire met up with her middle child in the visitor’s parking lot. Stacy got out at the same time as George, so she was always ready and waiting—usually on the steps of the gymnasium. Claire saw her there, and she saw that Stacy wasn’t waiting alone. Once again there was a boy with her. He didn’t attempt a hug or anything when Stacy got up to leave, but they looked like they wanted to.

Like her mom, Stacy was tall for a girl, but she had no problem showing off her long, yellow legs. She wore knee-length dresses and skirts whenever the weather permitted. She was only in the sixth grade, however, and the boys were not yet aware of the treasure they had among them. Well, most of them weren’t.

“Why can’t you ever pick me up first?” Stacy asked when she got to the car. Her hair was long like Claire’s, and she wore it in two ponytails today. She had on a tight, pink T-shirt with the word HOTTIE printed across the chest. Her watch was pink, the ribbons in her hair were pink, and her lips were pink; naturally so. This was Mommy’s bubblegum princess.

“You sure aren’t having a hard time waiting,” Claire said as Stacy climbed in the back. “Every time I pull up you’re with some knot-head boy.”

“No, I’m not. I’m usually with Crystal.”

“Where’s Crystal now?” Claire asked, backing out of her parking spot.

“She got detention.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“You don’t even know what she did.”

“All right. Tell me what she did.”

“She went to the bathroom without asking the teacher.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“She did ask at first,” Stacy said. “But he wouldn’t let her go.”

“That’s against the law,” Claire said. “You’re not going to have me believing that.”

“That’s against the law,” George Jr. said.

“Didn’t nobody ask you,” Stacy said.

“Didn’t nobody?” Claire hit the brakes and eyed her daughter in the rear-view mirror. “Girl, it sounds like you need to go back in there. Didn’t you have English class today?”

“Nobody asked you,” Stacy said to her little brother.

“That’s better,” Claire said. “And don’t talk to your brother like that.”

George Jr. sat up straighter and smiled. Stacy slouched and fastened her seatbelt.

* * *

Humboldt High School was right around the corner. Claire was glad for that because her oldest child had a sour disposition on most days. Nicole was fourteen years old. She was goofy at times, sometimes mature. Bold and beautiful some days, and insecure on the others; basically all things that came with that confounding age. She began to develop early—when she was just eleven—and Claire thought that had a lot to do with her daughter’s social issues.

But Nikki was in high school now, and she didn’t stick out like a sore thumb anymore. She was a freshman built like a senior, but that was a lot better than having that body in middle school.

The busses were already pulling away by the time they got to Humboldt. Claire parked in front of the main entrance, but she still didn’t see her daughter milling around with the other restless souls. She sighed and checked her watch. It was already three-thirty. George Sr. wouldn’t be home until after six, but she had a lot of getting ready to do on this special night.

“You want me to go find her?” Stacy asked, undoing her seatbelt.

“No, I don’t,” Claire said. “You keep your hot-tailed self right there.”

“I’m not hot-tailed!” Stacy whined.

Claire frowned at her in the mirror. “You know how old I was before I let a boy wait with me after school?”

“I don’t know,” Stacy said. “But I know it was a long time ago. He was probably a caveman.”

That cracked little George up.

“Oh, ha ha,” Claire said.

“How old were you, Mama?” George asked.

Claire turned and smiled at him. “Thanks for asking, young man. I was a senior in high school,” she told Stacy. “And that boy was your daddy.”

“We were just sitting there,” Stacy said. “We didn’t hold hands or nothing.”

“Or anything,” Claire corrected.

“Anything.”

“I don’t like girls,” George Jr. said.

“That’s a good boy,” Claire said.

“They don’t like you, either,” Stacy said.

“That’s enough,” Claire said. She checked her watch again. “Darn this girl…”

“There she go,” Stacy said.

Claire looked up and was happy to see Nikki emerge from the building. “There she is,” she told Stacy. “Or there she goes. You’ve got homework tonight.”

“I already have homework.”

“You have more now.” Claire had plenty of reading and grammar worksheets at home. Sometimes the lessons she assigned her children were harder than the stuff they brought from school.

“Man,” Stacy groaned.

“Ah-ha, you got homework!” George Jr. teased.

“Now you’re getting some, too, for gloating,” Claire told him.

“That’s okay. I like homework,” he said. And that was true. Claire couldn’t do anything but smile at him.

Nicole Hudgens approached the vehicle on her mother’s side with all the enthusiasm of a three-toed sloth. Of all her children, Claire saw more of herself in the oldest girl: Nikki was tall and dark-skinned with large eyes that were serious most of the time. She had her mother’s legs and breasts, but she considered this figure a curse at this point of her life. Today she sported baggy jeans and a long-sleeved button-down that was equally over-sized. She wore her hair down, with a large bang hanging over her left eye.

“Another bad day?” Claire asked when Nikki opened the door.

“It was alright,” the brooding beauty said.

“If you keep walking around looking like that people are going to think you’re depressed,” Claire warned.

“She needs a boyfriend,” Stacy offered.

“I/She do/does not need a boyfriend,” Claire and Nikki said at the same time.

Claire met eyes with her oldest daughter in the rearview mirror and smiled at her.

Nikki smiled back, and then rolled her eyes—lest anyone think her and Mommy shared a moment.