Carpool Confidential by Jessica Benson Read Free Book Online Page A

beckoned like a life raft of normalcy.
    Cadbury came wandering into the kitchen on arthritic legs, and I mentally added walking the dog to the list of things it was going to be virtually impossible to do without another functioning adult in the house. She ambled over and was very good about letting me sob into her fur about how sorry I was that Daddy had abandoned her. She put up with it for a few minutes before emitting a huge, I-could-care-less, disgusting dog breath yawn in my face and lying down for a nap.
    Technically Cad was Rick’s. He’d had her before we’d met— one of the things that had attracted me to him in the first place. Who wouldn’t love a single guy with a dog? It was so…solid and responsible. I’d just failed to notice that he’d managed never to be the one who’d walked her. Not that I’d minded doing it. I used to take her running with me, but now she was too old and slow.
    This could not be the detail that I made insurmountable, I told myself. I’d manage. I blew my nose, decided to bribe one of the maintenance guys in the building with whatever it took to get them to scoop after Cad, took a quick shower, flinching at the swollen horror of my face—I do not cry well—and hauled the kids out of bed.
    Why was it on weekends they were invariably up before first light asking for pancakes and someone to play Monopoly with them right now this second but on school mornings it required pleading, threats, and bribes to haul them out of bed? How was that going to be as a single parent?
    I watched Noah sleep, terrified by how trusting and defenseless he was, and then bent down and gathered him against me, inhaling the smell of his skin.
    â€œGod, Mom, I can’t breathe.” He struggled out of bed and glared up at me. “Why are you hugging me so hard?”
    I looked down at him, the way his hair stuck straight up on the side he’d been sleeping on, and felt my heart break again. “Just saying good morning, sweetie.”
    â€œYeah, well, how about letting me get some oxygen next time you say it?” He went into the bathroom.
    â€œWhat happened to your face?” Jared asked suspiciously (having learned my lesson, I didn’t try to hug him), and I knew things must be bad—six-year-old boys are not given to noticing much about the finer points of their mother’s appearance.
    â€œHeadache,” I told him, wondering if that excuse would fly at the PTA meeting. I was definitely not announcing my change of status there. You know those statistics about how one in two marriages ends in divorce? Well apparently none of them are here in Brooklyn Heights. This is easily the most married place on earth.
    â€œDaddy! Where’s Daddy?” Noah demanded, running down the hall from my empty bedroom at a tempo the downstairs neighbors probably didn’t much appreciate.
    I tensed up and took a breath. I’ve always hated any situation that requires improvisation—I write drafts of emails before sending them—so lying is up there on my not-good-at list. “He had to leave early this morning for a business trip.”
    â€œI didn’t know he was going away.” Jared was hot on Noah’s heels.
    My stomach clenched at lying to them. “It came up suddenly.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œLast night.” My response took a second too long. It didn’t sound natural.
    Noah frowned. “Where’d he go?”
    I obviously couldn’t do internal debate and lie at the same time. “Mexico City” (where had that come from?) “to start, then on to a couple other places.”
    â€œOh.” He didn’t sound suspicious anymore. “What’s for breakfast?”
    â€œWe can call him on his cell and say good morning, right?” Jared said.
    I felt myself flush. How stupid could I have been? “Not right now,” I said. “He’s on the plane. Later, though.”