They fall silent, but I hear another heavy sigh. I can picture Emmy pulling her son into her arms, him towering over her and wrapping his arms around her shoulders, resting his cheek on the top of her head. I blink at the family photos lining the walls in the hallway, all the smiles and hugs and trust and predictability. Even with her lying, cheating husband off to find a new family, Emmy has always been solid. Raising her sons to be decent humans, giving them space to breathe but not so much that they floated away, unnoticed and unguarded. I’ve always been aware of the differences between Maggie and Emmy, between our families. How could I not? But now those differences are bright red on a white background, stark and violent. Cause for alarm. Cause for worry. Cause to protect Eva in a way Emmy wouldn’t protect me. No, couldn’t. Right? Emmy tried. She always tries. Doesn’t she?
I turn and walk down the hall, closing myself into the bathroom as quietly as I can. A sob rises in my chest, blossoming into my throat until it escapes. I press my hand to my mouth to keep it in. Leaning on the tile counter, I meet my mother’s eyes in the mirror. Messy hair. A little haggard from all the late nights with Eva. My heart feels ripped in two. She’s my mother. The Michaelsons are my family, but she’s my mother. And they’re terrified of her. Of what she’ll do or say, some mistake that she can’t take back and whether or not it’ll affect Eva.
But she’s my mother.
I don’t want to tell all of her sad stories. I only want to tell Eva the good ones, the ones that make me a healthily functioning human with a healthily functioning mother.
But that’s not what Mom and I are.
I splash some water on my face and gulp down several breaths. I just want to go home, but I know Eva will come after me, and I don’t want her around Maggie tonight. Not tonight.
Downstairs Kimber and Luca are already deep into a game of air hockey while Eva watches from the 1970s-era orange-and-brown-striped couch. Her plate is empty and she’s licking her fingers.
“Damn, that’s a good cookie,” she says.
“Pie, Eva,” I say, pasting on a smile and sitting down next to her. “Calling the beloved Maine whoopie pie a cookie will get you excommunicated around here.”
“But it’s like a squishy Oreo.”
“And thank the gods for it, but it’s not a squishy Oreo. It’s a whoopie pie.” I force myself to take a bite and then talk with my mouth full. “Repeat after me. P-I-E.”
She laughs and leans into my shoulder. I want to kiss her right here, pie-stuffed mouth be damned. I need something to erase Luca and Emmy’s conversation, the knowledge of what I’m keeping from Eva and why. Something to remind me that this—?Eva and me—?is still happening, still okay, still right, no matter who my mother is.
So I pull Eva’s face toward me with two fingers on her chin and press my lips to hers. She smiles against my mouth and kisses me back. It’s sweet and soft and perfect.
And short. Luca clears his throat loudly, jolting us apart.
“Gray!” I turn toward him slowly. He stares at me from the air hockey table, spinning his striker in one hand. “Come play Kimber.”
I stare at him for a few seconds, wondering when he’s going to talk to me about spilling my own mother’s dirty secrets. “You sure she can handle that?” I ask, something like anger bubbling just under my skin.
“Oh, bring it.”
I push myself off the couch, wiping my chocolate-dusted fingers on my jeans. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m right here, guys,” Kimber says, hands on her hips. “And I just kicked his ass, Grace. I can hold my own.”
She’s smiling, so I laugh. “Fair enough.”
I take the striker from Luca, and Kimber drops the puck. We push it back and forth pretty easily at first. I take the first point, Kimber takes the next two, and then things go a little faster. And by faster, I mean harder. Soon, we’re both throwing our entire bodies into the game, and my right shoulder is sore as hell. The click-clack of the puck echoes through the basement.
“Um,” I hear Luca mumble, but I tune him out.
I slam the puck toward Kimber’s side, and it collides with her fingers right next to the goal. She screams and drops her striker, clutching at her hand and glaring at me.
The nail on her middle finger is broken and bleeding.
“Damn, Gray, what the hell?” Luca says, rushing to Kimber and taking her hand in his.
“Sorry,” I say. “But her finger shouldn’t have been hanging over the side of the table like that. Number one rule of air hockey: Keep your fingers off the field.”
“Still, you pretty much threw the puck at her.”
“She was playing just as hard. I didn’t mean to hit her finger, Luca.”
“I’ll get a Band-Aid,” Eva says, already halfway up the stairs.
“Why are we even playing air hockey?” I ask Luca, tossing my striker onto the hockey table. It rolls over itself a couple times, clattering loudly. “Don’t you want to talk?”
