The Accidental Book Club Read Online Free Page B

attack or an ingrown toenail, and an IV snaked into the back of one hand. The other hand, wrapped in a cloth bandage, was resting across her chest.
    Jean stood next to the bed and simply stared down at her daughter. Alcohol poisoning. It still didn’t make sense. And now separation too? What on earth had happened? And why hadn’t Laura told her?
    Laura had been such a pretty child. Everyone commented on it, how pretty she was. Her features were striking, and she had a way about her that was so easily flawless. Dainty. She’d been Jean’s “moon child”—always orbiting around Jean’s legs as she tried to vacuum or shop or cook dinner. She had rarely been more than a few steps away. While Kenny had taken every chance to bolt and explore the world in his bold, fearless way, Laura was more careful, more prone to worries and fears. And she seemed to take everything so personally.
    She could do things. Schoolwork was easy for her. So was making friends. She could sing reasonably well, and she was artistic when she wanted to be. She was incredibly organized, even from a very young age—she had a tendency to stack and line up her toys just so—and she seemed only to get smarter, better with age.
    She was pretty. She was talented. And she was a perfectionist like Jean had never seen before. She was the kind of child you didn’t worry about. The kind of child who had it all together. Who grew up to have a romantic marriage and a beautiful baby and a high-pressure executive job that she loved—loved!—with everything she had. The kind of child who grew up to be the woman who had it all. And had it all together. The kind of child who allowed you to sit back and be proud of a job well done.
    Only now she was lying in a hospital bed. And as Jean looked down into that puffy face, she could still see the shades of her “moon child.” She could still see that pretty little girl beneath.
    A nurse bustled into the room, interrupting Jean’s thoughts. “She probably should get some sleep. She’ll have to have that wrist X-rayed when the doctor comes in.”
    Jean’s hand wrapped around her own wrist involuntarily. “What happened to it?”
    The nurse shrugged. “Nobody knows. Probably never will. That occurs pretty frequently in cases like these. People get drunk, they injure themselves, they black out or pass out, and then the next morning are wondering how their wrist got broken. It’s all a mystery to everyone.”
    The nurse left the room, and with her gone and Curt gone and Laura snoozing, the room once again seemed bleak and gray and filled with a sweat-soaked stranger who might have had a passing resemblance to Jean’s daughter. Jean felt a sense of surrealism—maybe she was actually still at home and Dorothy was telling one of her long, complicated stories about her son’s legal troubles, and Jean had simply zoned out. She was imagining this, and would soon snap to, only to find that, frustratingly, she’d dropped a cheese-coated roasted red pepper into her lap. But the longer she stood there, listening to that infernal faint beeping, the more real it became.
    Her daughter was in trouble.
    Softly she crept forward until her knees brushed the crinkly mattress. Laura’s skin was pale and glossy, and each time she breathed, Jean got a new whiff of acrid alcohol-laced breath. She brushed Laura’s bangs off her forehead with one finger and was transported back in time. It seemed every memory she had of her child was one of achievement—graduations, weddings, brunches to celebrate new jobs, new promotions. But how deceiving had those appearances been? Had Laura gone out after those graduations, gotten smashed on cheap cocktails, and ended up sobbing in someone’s backseat about how bleak her life really was? Had she been an inattentive mother, unable to handle the imperfection, the mistakes that every mother must face over and over again? Why did she need to do this to herself?
    To hear Curt talk, it certainly