Lily came down at seven in a nightgown with cartoon cats on it and asked if she could have waffles, and Laura said yes, and the morning went on.
It was later that day, in the parking lot of the CVS on Far Hills Avenue, that Laura first said the idea out loud.
She was on the phone with Rachel. Rachel called her every few days now with logistics. Rachel loved logistics. She had made a shared spreadsheet for the beach trip with tabs for meals, groceries, room assignments, and activities, color-coded by family, and she had sent it to everyone twice.
"I've got you and Mark in the blue room on the second floor," Rachel was saying. "It has its own bathroom. Lily can bunk with Ava, they'll love that. And I've got Eli in the little room off the kitchen. I thought it might be good for him to have his own space, you know. In case he needs to, um. Decompress."
"That's thoughtful," Laura said.
"Mom asked me to ask you something." Rachel's voice changed, became careful. "About Eli."
Laura closed her eyes. She was sitting in the driver's seat of her minivan with the engine off and a bag of children's allergy medicine on the passenger seat, and the sun was coming through the windshield hot enough to make her sweat.
"What about him."
"She just wants to know if you've thought about what she said at Easter. She doesn't want to bring it up herself, she thinks you'll get defensive."
"I wonder why she'd think that."
"Laur, come on. I'm in the middle here." Rachel sighed. "Look. I love Eli. You know I do. But you remember Thanksgiving at our place, with the smoke alarm. And Easter. And it's Mom's seventieth. She's been so stressed about this trip. I just think, if there were some way to make it easier on everybody. Including him. He hates new places, doesn't he? He hates noise. It's going to be fourteen people in one house."
"What are you suggesting, Rachel."
"I'm not suggesting anything. I'm asking if you've thought about it."
And Laura, in the hot van in the CVS parking lot, heard herself say, very calmly, "What if he stayed home."
There was a pause on the line.
"I mean, I'm not saying he would," Laura said quickly. "I'm just saying. Hypothetically. If he stayed with someone here. For the week."
"Would Mark be okay with that?"
"Mark isn't going to be here. He's flying straight from Florida. He'll meet us at the house on Sunday." Laura heard the words come out of her mouth and felt something cold settle in her stomach, the way you feel when you have taken a step in the dark and found no stair beneath your foot. "He wouldn't even be here when we left."
"Laura." Rachel's voice was strange now. "You'd have to tell him."
"I know that."
"I mean, I'm not going to tell you what to do with your own kid. Honestly, I think Mom would be relieved. I think everybody would. I just..." Rachel trailed off. "I just think you'd have to tell Mark."