The kids were home Monday night, and Cary came over for dinner. After Shiloh put the kids to bed, she sat on the porch with him and made out for two hours. Shiloh got nine mosquito bites. Cary got a bruise in the shape of her teeth. (It wasn’t even sexual when she did it. She just wanted to bite him.)
“What the actual fuck is going on with you and Cary?” her momasked Shiloh as soon as she had the chance. It was Tuesday morning, in the kitchen, while the kids were in the next room eating scrambled eggs.
“I don’t know,” Shiloh whispered. “I don’tknowthe actual fuck.” She was washing a few dishes.
Her mom leaned on the counter next to the sink with her arms folded. “Are you sleeping with himplatonically?”
“No.” Shiloh pulled the ring out of her neckline and grimaced. “No.”
Her mom’s eyes got huge. She took hold of the ring and bent close. “Holy shit.”
“Iknow.” Shiloh shrugged her hands. “I don’t know. It was sudden.” She was getting dishwater all over the front of her dress.
“I wouldn’t call itsudden...” her mom said. She was still squinting at the ring. “How’s this gonna work?”
“Not easily. I don’t want the kids to know yet. Or Ryan.”
Her mom nodded. “It’s a pretty ring.”
“Yeah...”
She let go of the ring and looked up at Shiloh. “Are you happy about this?”
Shiloh nodded again. She put her own hand over the ring. “In the moments when it feels real, I’m really happy.”
Her mom smiled a little. “It won’t be easy with anyone—it may as well be ‘not easy’ with someone you love.”
“I love Cary.”
“You always have, Shiloh.”
Shiloh finally told Tom.
He responded by standing up and putting one foot on his office chair and one hand over his heart, and singing the chorus from “Carrie” by Europe.
“Caaa-arr-rie, Caaa-arr-rie, things they change, my friend.”
Seventy-Three
before
Senior year, whenever Shiloh got bored, she’d look up at Cary across the journalism room, or across the courtyard when he was meeting her after school, or across the front seat of his car—and sing “Carrie” by Europe. Caryhatedthat song, and he hated it when Shiloh made pointless scenes. Shiloh didn’t have a great voice, but she was loud.“‘Caaa-arr-rie! Caaa-arr-rie!’”
Cary would roll his eyes. Sometimes he’d shout, “Enough!”
Shiloh loved embarrassing him. It wasneverenough.
One time, in journalism, Cary got fed up and jumped out of his chair, pointing at her.“‘Young child with dreams—’”
Shiloh shrieked with delight.
Cary kept singing. It was “Shilo” by Neil Diamond—Shiloh was named after this song. Cary knew all the words.
He backed her into a corner, against the paste-up desk.“‘Held my hand out, and I let her take me—’”
“This isn’t working,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me—I love it.”
Cary kept singing. His eyebrows were low. He did a great Neil Diamond.
