Sprawled in a chair, surveying the damage, was Anna. Her hair was in her face, and her face was pale.

“Oh, great,” she muttered, turning narrowed eyes to Sybill. “Now she shows up.”

“I—I’m sorry?”

“Easy for you to say. I’ve just spent two and a half hours battling ten eleven-year-old boys. No—not boys,” she corrected between her teeth. “Animals, beasts. Spawns of Satan. I just sent Grace home with orders to lie down. I’m afraid this experience might affect the baby. He could be born a mutant.”

The children’s party, Sybill remembered, her dazzled eyes scanning the room. She’d forgotten. “It’s over?”

“It will never be over. I will wake up at night for the rest of my life, screaming, until they cart me off to a padded room. I have ice cream in my hair. There’s some sort of . . . mass on the kitchen table. I’m afraid to go in there. I think it moved. Three boys managed to fall in the water and had to be dragged out and dried off. They’ll probably catch pneumonia and we’ll be sued. One of those creatures who disguised himself as a young boy ate approximately sixty-five pieces of cake, then got into my car—I don’t know how he got by me, they’re like lightning—and proceeded to throw up.”

“Oh, dear.” Sybill knew it wasn’t a laughing matter. It shocked her to realize that her stomach muscles were quivering. “I’m so sorry. Can I help you, ah, clean up?”

“I’m not touching any of it. Those men—the one who claims to be my husband and his idiot brothers—they’re going to do it. They’re going to scrub and clean and wipe and shovel. They’re going to do it all. They knew,” she said in a vicious whisper. “They knew what a boy’s birthday party would mean. How was I to know? But they did, and they hid themselves away down at that boatyard, using that lame excuse about contract deadlines. They left me and Grace alone with this, this unspeakable duty.” She shut her eyes. “Oh, the horror.”

Anna was silent for a moment, her eyes still closed. “Go ahead. You can laugh. I’m too weak to get up and belt you.”

“You worked so hard to do this for Seth.”

“He had the time of his life.” Anna’s lips curved as she opened her eyes. “And since I’m going to make Cam and his brothers clean it up, I’m feeling pretty good about it, all in all. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I came to apologize for last night.”

“Apologize for what?”

The question threw her off rhythm. She was already running behind schedule, she thought, distracted by the chaos and Anna’s rambling monologue. Sybill cleared her throat and began again. “For last night. It was rude of me to leave without thanking you for—”

“Sybill, I’m too tired to listen to nonsense. You weren’t rude, you have nothing to apologize for, and you’ll annoy me if you keep this up. You were upset, and you had a perfect right to be.”