Bonnie nodded. "I'll call you later," she said.

22.

On Sat.u.r.day, Rod was packing to leave for Miami.

"I don't see how I can leave you when you're feeling this way," he was saying, even as he crammed his toiletry case inside his suitcase.

"I'll be fine," Bonnie told him, balancing precariously on the side of the bed, watching him, trying to look as healthy as she could.

"You don't look fine."

"It's my hair."

"What hair?" he joked. "She's got more hair than you do." His gaze traveled to the Dali lithograph on the wall. The faceless bald woman outlined in blue stared blankly back at Bonnie.

"I was thinking of buying a wig," Bonnie told him.

"Do me a favor, Bonnie. Don't do anything." He stopped his packing, sat down beside her. "Look, this is crazy, my going away now. You're in no shape to take care of three kids by yourself. What if Lauren gets sick again? Or Amanda?"

"They'll be fine. We'll all be fine," Bonnie insisted.

"Why don't I call Marla and tell her I won't be there till Monday? The meetings don't start till then anyway. I won't miss anything."

"You said you had to leave early to get things ready...."

"They'll manage without me."

"They can't." Bonnie stood up, folded the last of Rod's shirts and put it in the suitcase, as if this effectively ended the discussion. "Come on, Rod, you'll only make me feel guilty if you don't go."

He opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. "All right, but you have the number of the hotel. If anything happens and you want me back here, you call right away."

"Nothing's going to happen."

"And if you don't feel any better by Monday, I want you to see a doctor."

"I've already made an appointment," Bonnie told him, thinking that Dr. Walter Greenspoon probably wasn't the kind of doctor Rod had in mind.

"Good. Now, you're starting to make some sense." He looked around the room. "Have I got everything?"

"Your bathing suit?"

"I won't have time to swim," he told her, kissing the tip of her nose.

"What time is the limo getting here?"

Rod checked his watch. "Ten minutes. You're sure you're going to be all right?"

"I'm sure."

He closed his suitcase, zipped it up, lifted it off the bed. "Where are the kids?"

"Lauren's reading Amanda a story in her room. Sam's at Diana's."

Rod looked startled. "What's he doing there?"

"Apparently, Diana found a whole slew of odd jobs for him to do. She's paying him ten dollars an hour."

"The woman has more money than brains," Rod said dismissively, carrying his suitcase to the doorway. "Amanda," he called out, "Lauren. Where are my girls? Come, say good-bye to Daddy."

Don't go, Bonnie wanted to say, watching him as he hugged his daughters to his side. Stay here and look after us. Let someone else go to Florida. Let someone else keep Marla company. Stay here with us where you belong. Sleep beside me in our bed. Don't crawl into bed with a woman I despise. Don't forget how good we are together.

Bonnie sighed, but said nothing. How could he remember how good they were together when the last time they'd made love had been that awful evening when Lauren first got sick? Since then, he'd either come home too late from work, or she was feeling too sick. Last night, she'd hoped she could muster up the necessary energy, but in the end, nausea had proved more powerful than desire. The idea of making love had been about as appealing as running the Boston Marathon.

And now Rod was leaving for one whole week amid the palm trees of Florida, in the company of a woman with whom he was probably having an affair, and she was not only not telling him to stay, she was urging him to go, telling him she'd feel guilty if he didn't.

You're a good girl, she heard her mother say.

No, not good, Bonnie thought, as Rod beckoned her inside his arms beside his other two girls. Stupid. She was stupid to allow her husband to go off to Miami with Marla. And yet, realistically, what choice did she have? How could she keep him if he really wanted to go? At best, she would only be postponing the inevitable.

"Are you going to take good care of your mother?" Rod asked Amanda.

"Mommy doesn't feel well," Amanda said, her face serious.

"No, she doesn't. So you're going to have to be a very good girl and do exactly what she tells you."

"I will."

"I'll help," Lauren said. "I can take Amanda to the park later, if she'd like."

"The park?" Amanda started jumping up and down.

"Later," Lauren qualified, straining to sound very grown up. "If you're a very good girl."

"I'm a good girl," Amanda said, and Bonnie shuddered.

"You don't have to be a good girl," she whispered.

"What? Did you say something, honey?" Rod asked.

The phone rang.

"I'll get it," Lauren offered, running into Bonnie's bedroom and answering the phone in the middle of the third ring. "h.e.l.lo." A slight pause. "I'm afraid she can't come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?"

There was another pause, this one longer, more ominous. Bonnie could feel Lauren holding her breath.

"When?" she heard Lauren ask in her smallest little-girl voice, an audible catch in her throat. Then, "How?" Another long pause. "Yes, thank you for calling. I'll give her the message."

"Who was that?" Bonnie asked as Lauren walked slowly out of the bedroom, her face drained of color, her eyes void of sparkle. "Lauren, who was that? What did they say?"

"What is it, honey?" Rod asked.

"That was one of the nurses from the Melrose Mental Health Center," Lauren answered, her voice seeming to emanate from somewhere across the room. "My grandmother pa.s.sed away last night."

"What?" Bonnie couldn't believe her ears. "How?"

"The nurse said that she slipped into a coma a few days ago, and that she died last night. I don't believe it," Lauren continued, her voice an echo of Bonnie's thoughts. "How can this be? We were just there last week."

"She was an old woman," Rod said. "And she was suffering. It's better this way."

"But we were just there," Lauren repeated numbly.

"Which was very fortunate, when you think about it," Rod told her. "You got to see your grandmother again before she died. And she got to see you. I'm sure that made her very happy."

"She knew who I was," Lauren said, a tiny smile appearing on her lips, before disappearing under a spray of tears.

Rod drew his older daughter into his arms. "I'm sorry about your grandma, honey."

"Grandma Sally died?" Amanda asked her mother, her mouth agape, her eyes giant blue circles, as if she had colored them in herself.

"No, honey," Bonnie told her. "Grandma Sally is fine. This was Lauren and Sam's grandma."

"Not my grandma?" Amanda repeated.

"No, not your grandma."

"Your mommy?" she asked.

"No, honey," Bonnie answered, not really up for this conversation at this particular time. "My mommy died a few years ago."

"How old was she when she died?"

"Sixty," Bonnie answered absently, picturing her mother sitting up in bed, her face hidden in the shadows.

"How old are you?" the child asked nervously.

"A long way from sixty," Rod told her, cutting in, taking charge. "Don't worry. Your mommy's going to be around for a long, long time."

"But you're sick. Are you going to die?" Amanda persisted, grief washing across her face, sliding her sweet features one into the next, like wax melting.

You're in danger, she heard Joan cry out suddenly. You and Amanda.

A shiver traveled through Bonnie's body, like an electric current. "I'm not going to die. I'm going to be fine."

You're in danger, Joan cried again. You and Amanda.

"n.o.body's going to die here," Rod said forcefully. "Have we got that? n.o.body dies while Daddy's away."

There was a loud knocking on the front door, followed by the bell.

"That'll be my limo," Rod said, checking his watch.

"He's early."

"I'll tell him to wait."

"No, you're ready," Bonnie told her husband. "Go. There's no reason to stay."

"I see three reasons standing right in front of me," Rod said.

Maybe she was wrong, Bonnie thought hopefully. Maybe Rod wasn't having an affair with Marla. Maybe she'd gotten herself all upset for nothing.

"Three reasons to come back safely," Bonnie told him.

Rod leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. "I'll call every night."

"You don't have to do that."

"Try and stop me," he said.

I wish I could, Bonnie thought, watching him as he disappeared down the stairs and into the waiting limousine.

Bonnie was asleep when she heard the doorbell ring. At first she thought it was part of her dream-she was wandering the halls of the Melrose Mental Health Center and fire alarms were going off-but then she realized that it was the doorbell. She opened her eyes, looked over at the clock. It was a quarter past two. The bright sun shining through the bedroom window told her it was still afternoon. At least she hadn't slept the entire day away, she thought, waiting for someone to answer the door, wondering who it could be. But no one answered the persistent ring, and Bonnie was forced to drag herself out of bed.

Lauren must have taken Amanda to the park, she remembered, slipping a robe over her nightshirt and gliding down the stairs. Sam was probably still at Diana's. Rod's plane would be just touching down in Miami. She wondered whether Marla was a white-knuckle flier, and whether Rod's steady hand was clamped rea.s.suringly over hers.

The doorbell rang again. "Coming," Bonnie called out, reaching for the door and pulling it open.

Joan was standing on the other side. "Love your hair," she said, pushing past Bonnie and walking toward the living room at the back of the house.

Bonnie stared at Joan's back, the woman's t.i.tian tresses cascading down her back. So, this is a dream after all, she thought, relaxing as she followed Joan into her living room, and sat across from her on the avocado green sofa. "You look well," Bonnie told her husband's ex-wife, checking the woman's more-than-ample bosom for signs of bullet holes. There were none. Joan looked immaculate in an all-white linen pantsuit, as striking in death as she had been in life.

"More than I can say for you," Joan shot back. "Got anything to drink?"

"How about some tea?" Bonnie asked.

"Tea? Are you kidding? I never touch the stuff. Tea's not good for you. Didn't you know that?"

"No, I didn't know that."

"Got any brandy?"

"I think so."