Free The Plan by Kelly Bennett Seiler Page A

have irritated Claire to no end a few months ago. Now she had to smile at his ingenuity.
    Still, she was sad the clothes smelled so clean and not like her little boy. She wanted to breathe Luke in again.
    She laid the shirt back in the hamper and replaced the lid. She didn’t want to change anything in the room. She wanted it to remain exactly as it had been the last time her son was in it. She walked quietly to the bed and sat down on the end. She could feel the springs through her bottom. Why hadn’t she gotten Luke a better mattress? He’d never complained, but each time she’d lie with him, she’d think, This kid has the most uncomfortable bed in the whole house. Why had she waited to give him something better? Why did she put off so many things for tomorrow?
    Why hadn’t she known tomorrow might never come?
    She picked up his favorite stuffed bear, Lester, and held it to her chest. When Luke was little, Lester used to travel everywhere with them—to the grocery store, the bank, church, sleepovers at Gia’s house. Eventually, he’d graduated to simply a friend for bedtime.
    Claire kissed the top of Lester’s head and placed him gently against the pillow. Then, thinking better of it, she laid him down and pulled the covers up to his chin, as she’d done to Luke two thousand times before.
    She found herself wandering, next, into the twins’ room. As she pressed the door open, she was greeted by a burst of sunshine. The star mobile hanging from the ceiling glittered in the light. The matching vanities, at the end of each bed, were covered in lipstick and eye shadow stains—items the girls were not supposed to have, but somehow seemed to get their hands on anyway. The beds, as expected, were unkempt and their clean clothes, unlike Luke’s, were in piles at the ends of the beds.
    At least these kids hadn’t tried to pull one over on her.
    But what did it matter? Disobedient children? What she wouldn’t do to have them back—the scowls, the tempers and the stomping of feet as she told them to clean their rooms. In fact, if she had them back, she’d help them all clean their rooms. Why hadn’t she done that more often?
    Keeping your rooms clean isn’t my responsibility.
    She’s said that a hundred times. But, what had been her responsibility? Keeping them safe? She’d failed at that. Miserably. The least she could’ve done would’ve been to hang up Nike sweatshirts and tuck Elmo T-shirts into drawers.
    Claire wanted to go lie down on one of the girls’ beds. She wanted to pick up their stuffed animals and hold them and cry for all the things she wished she’d done better as a mom and all the things she’d now never get to do with her girls. She used to joke with Jack that, like on The Brady Bunch, the girls would have a double wedding. Now she’d never get to see either one of them in a wedding gown. Never watch them grow into young women and see them float down the stairs in their prom dresses. She’d never buy another baseball bat or ballet slipper or school notebook. No more piano lessons or Girl Scout meetings or Sunday School musicals.
    She hadn’t just lost her children. She’d lost her life.
    And, without a life, what was the point of living? How was she going to spend the next sixty years without her family?
    She didn’t think she could survive the next sixty minutes.
    It was all too much for one person to handle. Too heavy a load to bear. She couldn’t possibly be expected to continue.
    She was living in a hell worse than anything she’d ever imagined. Every mother fears the loss of a child to a miscarriage, an accident or an illness. Sometimes, when her babies were tiny, Claire would watch them sleep and feel such pain for the parents who’d lost a child to SIDS. She hadn’t been able to imagine anything worse than waking up to find your baby was gone.
    That would be a complete