“Right, right. But you don’t see them often.”
Caulder sighs. “We try. Orson’s step brother lives in NYC and they bring the kids there for field trips and shit, but there’s not a whole lot out here. How many times can they see Niagara Falls?”
“I mean, you can take a day trip to Canada,” I suggest.
“Yeah. Don’t get me wrong. We get together as frequently as we can during the season. But yeah, I don’t get to see my nieces and nephew—or brother and in-laws—as much as I’d like.”
“So you’re not close,” I say.
Caulder shrugs. “Meh. Close-ish. But no, we’ve never been extremely close. He had Orson growing up and I had hockey. Hockey kept me busy almost all the time.”
“Mmm,” I agree. There’s a pause before I continue. “And your parents are still married.”
“Yep. Classic high school sweethearts. They even still act like they love each other.”
“But do theylikeeach other?”
He laughs. “Yes! Luca and I give them a hard time, which I find funny since Luca also married his high school sweetheart. Honestly, they have a very classic romance. The kind of enduring love everyone wishes they can find. It doesn’t fade or grow tired. I’m pretty sure they love each other more all the time. I constantly hear my dad saying how he keeps falling in love with my mother all over again. It’s nauseating and yet… goals, you know?”
I do and I don’t. My family doesn’t look like that.
“And you’re an only child,” Caulder says. “Done.”
I snort, pulling my hands out of the sink and drying them on a dish rag. I lean against the counter to watch him spray down his counter and wipe it. It’s cute that we end up moving through the same room together. Sometimes I wonder if we do that consciously, or if that’s just where we gravitate naturally.
“No, okay. You grew up with your cousin, Adèle. You’re a week apart in age?” I nod. “She’s your cousin on your mom’s side—mom’s sister. Yeah?”
“Yep.”
“She has three baby daddies and seven babies, in alphabetical order: Béatrice, Cédric, Édouard, Nathan, Ophélie, Philippe, and Rosalie.”
“It’s hilarious that you memorized them alphabetically.”
He flashes me a grin. “I couldn’t think of an acronym for age order, so I’m working on that for round two.”
I laugh.
“Okay, this is where your life gets wild.” He stands straight and picks up the phone to look at me. I grin. “Your parents divorced when you were seven because your dad was having an affair with your mom’s sister. Not Adèle’s mother, but the third sister. So your mom decided to really fuck up some shit and married your dad’s mother—your grandmother. And they’ve been married for… twenty years?”
Chuckling, I nod. “Yep. Wild shit, right?”
“Man, that could be a soap opera,” Caulder muses, setting the phone down again. I watch his sexy ass walk to the fridge and open it. “Was it crazy growing up?”
“Not as much as you might think, no. There was definitely drama when it came out that my dad was having an affair with my aunt. There are still some unanswered questions about who biologically fathered a couple of my cousins from that aunt. Also,that aunt has definitely been shunned by the family. Outside of that, there was no drama. Except what my dad tried to pull when my mom and grandmother got together. Man, was he pissed.”
Caulder shakes his head, chucking. “This is like old English families. Keeping the bloodline close.”
I laugh. “They’re not related, babe.”
“Oh, I know, but saying ‘my mom married my grandmother’? Yeah, that’s an image.”
“Yeah, okay. Fair. My mom married my father’s mother. Better?”
Caulder laughs. “No. But also clearer. I feel like my life is kind of boring compared to yours.”
“Nah. You have a healthy, happy couple to look up to. You know what it looks like to be loved and treated well. I love my family, and I think I’m pretty well rounded as far as knowing what a healthy relationship looks like. But it’s from the outside. Not direct observation. Bouncing between Mom and Dad was… weird. Mom with Grandma, that was fucking confusing. Just as confusing as Dad with Auntie Lydia. I’m not saying they weren’t happy, but watching my family fracture into different, strange combinations and seeing the kind of havoc that created?” I shake my head.
“I can understand that. I definitely have a very rosy idea of what a relationship should look like.” He pauses in cutting up his berries. “Sometimes I wonder how Mom’s going to feel when she finds out that she has two gay sons,” he admits quietly.
