Live to Tell (Live to Tell #1)(14)

Another cluster of young, chatting mothers stand waist-deep in the water, keeping watchful eyes on babies napping in shady strollers and toddlers and preschoolers splashing in the shallow stairwell.

If Sadie were here, Lauren might attempt to mingle. But Lucy, bored with the pool scene, took her little sister over to the playground—after asking if Lauren would pay her for “babysitting.”

“Mom?”

She looks up to see Ryan, dripping wet, standing over her. He’s growing up; he’s starting to look more and more like his father, she thinks, with a twinge of both affection and pain.

“Where’s your towel?” she asks him automatically.

“Dunno. Can I have money for the snack bar?”

“Please?”

He flashes a brief, rare grin. “Please?”

“There are a couple of dollars in the pocket of my bag on the chair over there.” She points to the spot she staked out earlier, when it was beneath the shade of a tree. Now it’s in full sun. Time to move.

“Can I have ten?”

“Dollars?”

“Please.”

“You don’t need ten dollars for a bag of chips or an ice cream, Ry.”

“I’m getting a burger and fries.”

“But you ate lunch an hour ago.”

Ryan shrugs. “I’m hungry again.”

He’s been ravenous day and night since he got back from camp. All that fresh air, or maybe all the growing he did in the eight weeks he was gone. She’d sent away a little boy and gotten back a man. He’s going to need his father now more than ever.

“Mom…money?”

“My wallet is locked in the glove compartment,” she tells Ryan. “The car keys are in my bag. Go get the keys, get the money, put the wallet back in the glove compartment, and make sure no one sees you do that.”

He rolls his eyes.

“I’m serious, Ry.”

“Where are we, Mom, the South Bronx? Do you really think I’m going to get mugged here?”

“You never know. Bad things happen everywhere. And make sure you lock the car again. Okay?”

He’s already heading toward her bag on the chair.

“Ry! You need to reapply your sunscreen.”

“After I eat.”

“Make sure you lock the car!”

“I heard you! Geez! I said okay!”

Watching her son take her keys and stalk off toward the parking lot, Lauren makes vigorous circles in the water with her bare foot.

Damn Nick. He left for the Vineyard the day after the kids got home, seeing them only briefly in between. He did send them a few text messages after he left—a form of communication both Ryan and Lucy relish. Lauren isn’t big on thumb typing, but Nick started getting into it right around the time he began his affair. Lauren suspects that it was Beth, and not his teenage kids, who prompted him to jump on the technology bandwagon.

Poor Ryan. He’s been hoping his father will have time to take him on an overnight fishing trip before the summer’s over—a longtime summer father-son tradition. But Lauren doubts that’s going to happen. Next weekend is hers, and she’s planning to take all three kids to Rye Playland, another summer tradition.

All too soon after that, it will be Labor Day; back to schedules and routines. Lauren might actually be looking forward to that. She isn’t sure.

Why don’t I ever know what I want anymore?

“Here.”

She looks up to see Ryan standing over her again, holding out her keys. His fingernails are, she notices, bitten down to stubs.

“Did you lock the car?”

“You only told me to five times.”

“So did you?”

“Yes! Okay? Yes!”

“Don’t speak to me in that tone. Did you find a ten?”

“I found a twenty.”

“You don’t need—”

“I know, but you didn’t have a ten.”

“Bring me the change, okay?”

“Okay!” he says, as if he thinks she’s told him that five times, too. He looks over toward the snack bar. His friends are already at a picnic table, eating.

“Mom—your keys.”

“Put them back in my bag, Ry.”

He huffs over, drops them in. She opens her mouth to tell him to push them down inside so they won’t fall out, but he’s already dashing toward the snack bar.

The camp didn’t just send her back a man, she notes, climbing out of the pool; they sent her back a mercurial, derisive man, very much like…

No. That’s not fair.

Just because Ryan looks like Nick—that doesn’t mean he’s picked up on the way Nick treats her these days and is following suit. It’s just his age.

Regardless of his new moodiness, Lauren reminds herself, sitting on her chair and toweling off, Ryan isn’t Nick.

Her gaze falls on a nearby mom who is kneeling on a blanket, doling out Goldfish crackers and juice boxes to several look-alike children.

Watching her, sensing her contentment, Lauren feels as though she knows her—knows her life, anyway.

You’re married, and your husband works in the city, she guesses. You’re living happily ever after here in suburbia—or at least you think you are.