Free Square in the Face (Claire Montrose Series) by April Henry Page A

Bradford.”
“What’s he like?”
    Lori looked up at the ceiling as she searched her memory. “Tall. Thin. He seemed old to me then, but he was probably only in his mid-forties. And he has these pale eyes, like blue ice.”
    “He doesn’t sound like the warm, fatherly type.”
    Lori nodded. “He was all business.” Her smile was bitter. “I guess that’s what it was, a business.   He probably sold my daughter to the highest bidder.”
    “Mommy!” The wail was faint, but Lori was already halfway down the stairs by the time it was repeated. “Mommy!”
    Claire followed her down more slowly, her ankle protesting at every step.   Zach was in the hallway on his hands and knees, his small body seeming to convulse as he vomited on the oak floor. It was still a shock to see his completely bald head. Kneeling by him, Lori massaged his shoulders, tears running down her face.
    Panic hummed in Claire as she looked at the bright red spattered on the floor. “Is that blood?” Was Zach beginning to hemorrhage inside?
    Without looking up, Lori shook her head. “He had Spaghetti Ohs for lunch. Could you start filling a tub for me?” She continued to pat and soothe him until his stomach was empty. While Lori gave Zach a bath, Claire found rubber gloves, a bucket and a sponge under the kitchen sink. She scrubbed the floor clean as she listened to Lori hum as the water splashed. How hard it must be to be strong for him, not to scream or cry or curse God, but instead to hum Zach a lullaby.
    After he was tucked back in bed, Claire asked, “Do you need to call the doctor’s office? He seemed so sick.”
    Lori shrugged. “I know what they will say. ‘It’s normal.’ ‘It’s to be expected.’ ‘Bring it up with the doctor next visit.’ Vomiting is normal. He’s so tired he can’t hold his head up sometimes, but if I call they say that’s okay. From the oncology nurses’ point of view, it’s all normal. Constipation, stomach cramps, headaches, headaches, pains in his jaw. These drugs they have him on, they can permanently screw up his liver, give him heart failure or diabetes, even make his bones so brittle I could break his arm if I’m not careful. I guess they figure that all those are in the future, and the cancer is killing Zach now.” Lori’s voice broke.
    A hundred years from now they will pity us , Claire thought, for how we tried to fight cancer by burning, poisoning and cutting the patient . And what if these remedies, as awful as they were, didn’t work? She had to find Zach’s sister.
    ###
    Dante’s phone rang for the third time, which meant the answering machine was about to click on. Claire decided she didn’t feel like talking to a machine, not when what she wanted was the real Dante. Part of her felt guilty about going out to dinner with Michael Gregory, even though she knew in her heart that it meant nothing. She was about to disconnect when the phone was picked up.
    “Hello?” The breathless voice was a woman’s, low and melodious.
    “Oops. Sorry - I must have dialed the wrong number.”
    “Were you calling Dante? He’s in the shower. This is sara.”
    Sara, the woman who thought her ghost-written quickie celebrity autobiographies meant she shared both a profession and a spelling affectation with e.e. cummings; sara, the woman Dante had dated two years earlier; sara, who seemed to be on a one-woman mission to make feel Claire feel provincial, stupid and plain.
    “Is this Claire?” Her voice was as sickly sweet as cough syrup.
    “Yes. Yes it is.” With an effort, she kept the speed and pitch of her voice normal.   Claire had felt this way once before, when her car had been rear-ended. The impact had snapped her forehead onto the edge of her steering wheel, opening up a section of her skin as neatly as a seam. She had stared at her blood-flecked dash with the same sensation of disbelief, layered over the knowledge that in another second she was going to be feeling great pain.
    “We