“Blue,” she said. “I know you’re angry at me, but that’s not how we treat books.”

He dropped his book on the floor with a thud, and when he bent over to pick it up, he lifted it by the pages and several of them tore off in his hand.

“You’re mad at me, son,” Patricia said. “Not at the book.”

Then he was screaming, face red, shaking the book by its pages, the covers flopping back and forth.

“Shut up!” he screamed, and Korey stuck her fingers in her ears and hunched lower. “I hate you! I hate you! You tried to kill yourself because you’re crazy and now you’re tied to the bed and you’re going to be sent to a mental hospital. You don’t love any of us! All you care about are your stupid books!”

He grabbed the pages of his book in one hand and frantically tore them out, letting them fall to the floor. They slid across the room, beneath the bed, under the chair. Then he threw the cover, now just cardboard, at Patricia. It hit her in the leg.

“That’s ENOUGH!” Carter bellowed, and Blue stopped, stunned into silence, his face twisted with rage, cheeks mottled, snot running from his nose, fists clenched by his side, body vibrating.

Patricia needed to go to him and take him in her arms and take that anger from him, but she was tied to the bed. Carter stood by the door, not moving, arms folded, surveying the scene he had created, not going to comfort their son, not unstrapping her arms so she could do it instead, and Patricia thought, I will never forgive you for this. Never. Never. Never.

“Can I get money for the machines?” Korey mumbled.

“Sweetheart,” Patricia asked. “Do you feel the same way as your brother?”

“Dad?” Korey repeated, ignoring Patricia. “Can I get a dollar for the vending machines?”

Carter looked away from Patricia and nodded, putting his hand in his back pocket and pulling out his wallet. The only sound in the room was Blue crying.

“Korey?” Patricia asked.

“Here,” Carter said, holding out some bills. “Take your brother. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Korey hauled herself to her feet and left, leading Blue by the shoulder. She didn’t look at Patricia once.

“There you have it, Patty,” Carter said after they’d gone. “That’s what you’re doing to your children. So what’s it going to be? Are you going to continue with this fixation on someone you hardly know? What’s he done, exactly? Oh, I remember: nothing. He hasn’t done one single, solitary thing. He’s not accused of anything. The only person who thinks he’s done something wrong is you, and you have no evidence, no proof, nothing except your feelings. So you can continue to be fixated on him, or you can put your attention where it belongs: on your family. It’s up to you. I’ve lost my promotion, but it’s not too late for the kids. This can still be fixed, but I need a partner, not someone who’s going to keep making it worse. So that’s the decision you have to make. Jim, or us? Which is it going to be, Patty?”

THREE YEARS LATER…

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

October 1996

CHAPTER 24

It made Patricia nervous when Carter used his cellular phone while driving, but he was the better driver and they were already running late for book club, which meant it was going to be hard to find parking.

“And you’ll upgrade me to a king,” Carter said, letting go of the wheel with one hand to put on his turn signal.

Their dark red BMW took the turn into Creekside smooth and easy. Patricia didn’t like it when he drove like this, but on the other hand this was one of the few times he didn’t have Rush Limbaugh on the radio, so she took her blessings where she could.

“You can make the check out to Campbell Clinical Consulting,” Carter said. “The address is on the invoice I faxed.”

He snapped his phone shut and hummed a little tune.

“That’s the sixth talk,” he said. “It’s going to be busy this fall. You’re sure you’re all right with me being gone so much?”

“I’ll miss you,” she said. “But college isn’t free.”

He steered them down the cool tunnels formed by Creekside’s trees, dying sunlight flickering between the leaves, strobing over the windshield and hood.

“If you still want to remodel the kitchen, you can,” Carter said. “We have enough.”

Up ahead, Patricia saw the back of Horse’s Chevy Blazer parked at the end of a long line of Saabs, Audis, and Infinitis. They were still a block from Slick and Leland’s house, but the parked cars stretched all the way back here.

“Are you sure?” Patricia asked. “We still don’t know where Korey’s thinking of going.”

“Or if she’s even thinking,” Carter said, pulling up behind Horse’s Chevy but leaving a big buffer zone between their cars. It didn’t pay to park too close to Horse these days.

“What if she picks somewhere like NYU or Wellesley?” Patricia said, undoing her seat belt.

“The chances of Korey getting into NYU or Wellesley, I’ll take those odds,” Carter said, giving her a peck on the cheek. “Quit worrying. You’ll make yourself sick.”

They got out of the car. Patricia hated getting out of cars. According to the bathroom scale, she’d gained eleven pounds and she felt them hanging from her hips and stomach, and they made her feel unsteady on her feet. She didn’t think she looked bad with a fuller face as long as she sprayed her hair a little bigger, but getting in and out of cars made her feel graceless.

She waddled—walked—up the street with Carter, the October chill prickling her arms with goose bumps. She readjusted her grip on this month’s book—why did Tom Clancy need more pages than the Bible to tell a story?—and Carter opened the gate in the literal white picket fence around Slick and Leland’s front yard. Together, they went up the path of the Paleys’ large, barn-red Cape Cod that looked like it belonged in New England, right down to the decorative millstone in the front yard.

Carter rang the bell and the door instantly swung open to reveal Slick. She was gelled and moussed and her mouth was too small for her lipstick, but she looked genuinely happy to see them.

“Carter! Patricia!” she cried, beaming. “You look fabulous.”

Recently, Patricia had surprised herself when she realized that the main reason she kept coming to book club was to see Slick.

“You look wonderful, too,” Patricia said, with a genuine smile.

“Isn’t this vest adorable?” Slick spread her arms. “Leland bought it for me at Kerrison’s for almost nothing.”

It didn’t matter how many Paley Realty signs sprang up all over Mt. Pleasant, or how much Slick talked about money, or showed off things Leland bought for her, or tried to gossip about Albemarle Academy now that Tiger had finally gotten in. To Patricia she was a person of substance.

“Come on back!” Slick said, leading them into the claustrophobic, overstuffed roar of book club.

People spilled out of Slick’s dining room, and Patricia twisted her hips to avoid bumping into anyone as Slick led them past the stairs, past all the display cases for her collections—the Lenox Garden bird figurines, little ceramic cottages, miniature sterling silver furniture—past new wall plaques bearing even more devotional quotations, past the collectible wristwatches mounted in shadow boxes.

“Hello, hello!” Patricia said to Louise Gibbes as they went by.

“You look fabulous, Loretta,” Patricia said to Loretta Jones.

“Your Gamecocks took a whupping Saturday,” Carter said to Arthur Rivers, clapping him on one shoulder, never slowing down.

They emerged from the hall into the new addition at the back of the house and the ceiling suddenly shot up over their heads, soaring to a series of skylights. The addition stretched almost to the Paleys’ property line, a massive barn for entertaining, and every inch was crammed with people. There must be forty members these days, and Slick was just about the only person with enough house for all of them.

“Help yourselves,” Slick said over the roar of conversation bouncing off the high ceilings and the far walls, which were hung with picturesque farm implements. “I have to find Leland. Did you see this? He gave me a Mickey Mouse watch. Isn’t it fun?”

She waved her sparkly wrist at Patricia, then slipped away into a forest of backs and arms holding rental glasses and hands holding rental plates and everyone with copies of Clear and Present Danger tucked beneath their elbows, or resting on the backs of chairs.

Patricia looked for someone she knew, and saw Marjorie Fretwell over by the buffet. They kissed on both cheeks, the way people did these days.

“You look wonderful,” Marjorie said.

“Have you lost weight?” Patricia asked.

“Are you doing something different with your hair?” Marjorie asked back. “I love it.”