“Hi, Mom,” he says.
“I’m going to hang this up and then I’ll go outside,” Nora says. “Thanks, Uncle Simon.” She usually leaves off theuncle, so Simon assumes this is part of whatever normie drag she’s performing today.
“Mom, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Paulette Robins, my mother.”
Charlie shakes hands and beams. Simon and his mother jointly remember that they’re supposed to hug, so that’s what they do for about two seconds, his mother’s shoulders fragile under Simon’s hands.
Edie is winding around Simon’s feet like she thinks she’s a cat, so Simon picks her up. As soon as he has her in his arms, it’s like the edges of his mood get sanded off. He doesn’t even know what his moodis.
“We’ve heard so much about you,” his mom tells Charlie.
Simon winces. He calls his mother every other week. Usually they talk about clothes. Sometimes she monologues about azaleas and her grandchildren and the woeful ineptitude of the board of directors she serves on. Simon monologues about Edie’s latest exploits and whatever annoying things Charlie’s done.
Charlie has to know that anything Simon told his mom about him before this spring would be negative, but he keeps on beaming.
“Cucinelli?” Simon’s mother asks, taking in his outfit. It’s a shell-pink linen suit he bought on a deranged whim two years ago, and which he wears whenever it’s even remotely plausible to wear a pink suit.
“Naturally,” he says, inordinately pleased she recognizes it, the first real thing he’s felt in what seems like hours. Next to him, Charlie sucks in a breath like he’s figured something out, and—it’s fine.
“Your father’s around here somewhere. Peter and Sarah too, and Bill and Lauren,” she says, listing Simon’s middle brother and sister-in-law and both his stepparents. He assumes various stepsiblings and nieces and nephews are also around. “And, well, everyone. If you want to say hello.”
She says this like Simon’s a visitor from an alien planet where saying hello might not be customary, and she’s trying hard not cause a diplomatic incident. It’s kind. She’s kind. They’ve all always been kind. Something’s horribly wrong with Simon that it doesn’t make him feel anything.
Simon doesn’t particularly want to say hello, but he doesn’t wantnotto say hello, so he follows his mother outside. “I’m so glad you brought someone,” she says, quiet, when Charlie’s dropped a few paces behind.
There’s nothing he can say to that, so he doesn’t try. He’s sure she means it, and he guesses he’s pleased, but he doesn’t know. His feelings are all situated behind a nice, thick fog.
Outside, Charlie takes Simon’s hand. That’s new. They don’t do that, except in bed, which is a little different, and also not a direction Simon’s brain is capable of going right now.
His dad comes over, then his middle brother, then fifteen consecutive Devereaux and Devereaux-adjacent people. It turns out that when you’re holding a dog and your boyfriend’s hand, nobody can hug you.
Charlie million-dollar smiles his way through the entire ordeal. Simon’s seen the Charlie Blake charm offensive dozens of times before, all loud good humor and booming laughter infused with what he now knows is genuine warmth. At one point, Charlie, Simon’s stepfather, and one of Simon’s brothers are talking about some kind of sport. Hockey? Basketball, maybe? Simon feels like he’s watching the entire thing on a tiny screen. It’s an episode of a show he’s not sure he wants to watch.
Charlie steers Simon toward one of the little tables scattered around the garden. Simon wonders what they would have done if it rained. Not that there would be any trouble fitting a hundred-odd people inside the house, but at what cost to the aesthetics? Charlie disappears, then comes back with a bowl of water for Edie and a plate of fruit and some bread for Simon.
“They’re all happy to see me,” Simon says, voicing the one thought that keeps scrolling through his head as he watches family members assemble and reassemble in various configurations. Everyone’s either having a good time or doing a professional quality job at faking it.
“I can tell.”
“You can go have fun if you want.” Charlie is like these people, gregarious and cheerful, full of the right things to say. They’d like him. He’d fit right in.
“Look at me,” Charlie says. Simon does. “Don’t be a fucking idiot. I didn’t come here to hang out with your family.”
“You could, though.”
“You could fuck yourself.” Charlie slings his arm over the back of Simon’s chair, not touching him, but there for Simon to lean into.
Simon watches Nora talk to her mother, to Simon’s mother, to some cousins. Whatever dynamic his family has cultivated, the dynamic that’s made Simon a spectator for thirty-four years, doesn’t exclude Nora. She’s a part of it. Maybe the family dynamic has broadened, or maybe Nora’s better at this than Simon ever was.
Either way, he’s relieved. Maybe she put on that dress and took out the piercings in order to cooperate with her parents, not because she got browbeaten into it. He’ll find out later.
He doesn’t know why being near his family feels like wearing clothing tailored for somebody else, pinching and pulling ever so slightly, never a chance to forget that it isn’t his own. They love him. Even his brothers. Even his stepparents. Probably even his sisters-in-law, both of whom have known him for going on twenty years.
Three children are hovering near Simon’s table. They’re younger than Nora, but old enough to be in high school, or close to it. One of them looks enough like a Devereaux that he’s probably a nephew. The others might belong to his stepsiblings.
“Hey, you guys,” Charlie says. “What’s up?” Simon had planned on ignoring them, but Charlie’s a better person.
The tallest one takes a step closer. “How long have you been boyfriends?” she asks.
