Page 43 of The Chain

Now that she’s over the shock of seeing them, she has only two objectives: get them out as quickly as possible and without raising any suspicions about Kylie’s absence.

“Pete, what are you doing here?” Marty asks.

Pete marches across the room and gives his brother a hug. “Hey, Marty.”

“Pete, Jesus, it’s great to see you. Wow, you are as brown as a berry. Look at you. Tammy, this is my big brother, Pete,” Marty says.

“Nice to finally meet you in the flesh,” she says and kisses him on the cheek.

“I think it’s obvious that I got the looks and the brains in the family,” Marty quips. “What brought you up here, big brother?”

Rachel can see the cogs turning in Pete’s brain as he tries to think of something. “I called Pete to help me with the roof,” she says.

“Yeah, the roof,” Pete agrees. “I took care of it.”

“Sorry about that, honey,” Marty says, chagrined. “You sounded really upset on the phone.”

“It’s fine now,” Rachel replies, glancing at the clock.

“So where’s my golden girl? Are we a little early?” Marty says, evidently relieved to have avoided a gigantic fight about the leaky roof. He looks around for Kylie.

“Are you taking Kylie somewhere?” Pete asks, trying too hard to sound casual.

“Taking Kylie for a little daddy time and a little crazy-auntie time. I’m the crazy auntie in this setup,” Tammy says.

“Kylie!” Marty shouts upstairs.

“Oh, I nearly forgot, this is for you,” Tammy says. She reaches into a shopping bag and gives Rachel a bottle of champagne. “It’s your one-year anniversary coming up soon.”

“One year?” Rachel wonders out loud. “We’ve only been divorced since February.”

“Not that. It’s about a year since your last chemo. That’s what Marty said. It’s been a year and it hasn’t come back.”

“Oh, yeah, that. Is it a year? Jesus, how time flies, huh?” Rachel says, still furious at herself for forgetting that Marty was coming.

“A year of full remission. That’s something,” Marty says. “You should celebrate. You’ve got the rest of the weekend off. Treat yourself. Go to that Max Richter concert you could never drag me to!”

Rachel puts the now-riddled-with-irony champagne bottle on the countertop. The polite thing would be to offer them a drink, but that would eat up more precious minutes. Her mind is racing. How is she going to explain this? She can’t say Kylie is sick. Marty would insist on seeing her.

“So, um, Augusta?” Pete asks hesitantly, not wanting to initiate a conversation but trying to buy some thinking time.

“Why did you mention that?” Tammy says and mimes hanging herself.

“Oh, man, yeah, Augusta National is just beautiful and—” Marty begins.

“Where’s Kylie? Is she getting ready?” Tammy wonders. She takes Rachel’s hand, gives her a big smile, and checks a ping on her phone.

Really, these kids are too much,Rachel thinks, disengaging her hand.I mean, you can hide anything behind a smile.

Anything at—

Something occurs to her.

Something terrible.

Something diabolical.

“That’s a lovely necklace you’ve got there,” she says to Tammy. “I’ve been thinking of getting achain. What do you think?”