The Christmas Wedding - James Patterson [3]
Chapter 3
AS IT TURNED OUT, Claire didn’t have time to wrap ice in a dishrag and apply it to her hurt cheek. She didn’t even have time for a few well-deserved tears.
That’s because the phone rang. One of her sisters about Mom? Lizzie, probably. Definitely not Emily calling from New York. Her lawyer sister was probably toiling away in her office, even on the weekend.
“Claire Donoghue?” the voice on the other end asked. Not Lizzie.
“Yes, but whatever you’re selling, we don’t need it. Sorry. I know you’re just trying to make a living.”
“This is Officer Louise Gastineau of the Myrtle Beach Police Department. Are you the mother of August Donoghue?”
Gus! Their fourteen-year-old was supposed to be in his bedroom, grounded for life after having been hauled in by the police for upending the portable potties left at the beach from the Halloween carnival.
“What happened? Is Gus hurt?” Claire asked.
“No,” said the officer. “He’s feeling just fine. In fact, he may be feeling too fine. He seems pretty stoned. So stoned that he’s sleeping on the floor in the mall. Right outside the Hollister store. Near Target.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” Claire asked.
“Nothing much, if you can get down here and get him out of the mall. We didn’t find any pot on him. Must have smoked every grain he had. He’s just sleeping the sleep of the truly happy. Only he has an awful lot of Christmas shoppers stepping over and around him. Including one of his concerned teachers, who saw Gus and called us right away.”
Claire thanked Officer Gastineau, who commiserated with her, adding that she had “three teenagers of my own.” Then Claire called for the eleven-year-old twins, Toby and Gabrielle, to aid in the rescue mission. She couldn’t help thinking of the classic phrase “Like father, like son.” God, she hated that idea.
Claire didn’t even bother telling Hank where she and the twins were headed. Just before she ripped out of the driveway, she looked up at the house and saw him at the window. He was inhaling from a substantial joint and finger-waving bye-bye to her.
She was definitely going to her mother’s for Christmas, with or without Hank. To be honest, she couldn’t wait to go home.
Chapter 4
THE SLEEPING arrangements in Claire’s house that night were highly creative, to say the least, but mostly sad, really sad. Hank slept on the foldout couch that he had occupied most of the day. Gus slept on the kitchen floor because Claire, Toby, and Gabrielle couldn’t carry him another foot.
It worked out, in an oddball sort of way. The kitchen turned out to be a fairly convenient spot for Gus. When he awoke at three in the morning with an advanced case of the munchies, he was where a guy should be to eat an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a half jar of peanut butter, and about a half pound of baking chocolate.
Claire was afraid that when Hank’s weed wore off, he would come upstairs and try to fall asleep next to her.
So she covered herself completely with quilts and blankets and tried to fall asleep on the white wicker sofa in the sunroom.
Of course, she knew she’d never fall asleep there. And she was right. At midnight she sat up and stared out at the small sliver of cold, moonlit beach. Then Claire did what she rarely did. She cried her eyes out. Not for herself. For everybody else in the house. She had a habit of putting herself last, just the way her mother did.
The tears came rushing down her puffy, aching cheek. She finally buried her face in a quilt to keep the noise of her weeping from her sleeping family. But she just couldn’t stop the cascade of tears.
Yes, she thought, I can forgive Gus. He’s a teenager.
What did he do that was so awful? Some mischief with the stupid portable toilets. Then he got stoned like a million other misguided American teenagers. But she could not forgive Hank, not anymore. Damn him. Most husbands were not getting stoned on Sunday afternoons that could be spent with their families; most husbands were not slapping their wives