With Nate, I don’t know how I’ve transgressed, but I must have done something. I tally all my deficiencies (as a partner, a woman, an adult, a daughter, a sister, a colleague) on a piece of paper. It’s a long list. I circlebad temperthree times. I hadn’t told Nate the real story of how I quit my last job. I only lost my cool once during our relationship, a few days before we left for Darlington Manor. I know it shocked him, but enough to leave me the day before our wedding?
I agonize over Nate’s letter and fret about where it’s gone. I imagine someone finding it when they clean the room, and I’m mortified by this stranger having access to my pain. I wish I hadn’t left it behind.
I’m vaguely aware that Aurora and Betty have no escape from me unless they’re at work or locked in the bedroom. Betty’s showers are getting longer, and I overhear Aurora asking for her patience.
George checks in more than he has for years, wanting to know how I’m feeling. But it just makes me miss him more.
Avery Harper-Klyne sends me a direct message. She bumped into our friend Jenny at the checkout at the Lakefield Foodland, and Jenny told her everything. Avery is SO SORRY. She says she knows EXACTLY what I’m going through because herdivorce was EXCRUCIATING. She reminds me that there is sunshine behind the darkest clouds. For example, Avery knows of an exciting business opportunity that would offer me financial independence, which was SO IMPORTANT for her after her divorce. The hair products are literally LIFE-CHANGING, and there’s only a small investment to get started. Am I interested in hearing more? Also, Jenny told her George is single again. WILD! Are he and I still in touch?
I ask Avery if she has free samples.
She does not.
A week in, I decide Avery is right about one thing—it’s time to work. I’m sick of the nest, and I’m not sure who’s covered in more cat hair, me or Atomic Yellow. But also, the time I took off for the wedding has run out.
I develop recipes for Brie Palmer. We became close in culinary school, back when she still went by Brianna. Our friendship was born out of rivalry—we were both at the top of the class—but forged by being two women among a mostly male student body. While I went to work in restaurants, Brie fashioned herself as a food influencer. She’s the savviest person I know and has translated her success into a culinary empire with two cookbooks (Baking with BrieandBetter with Brie), a video crew, a multi-person social media team, and a line of polka-dot kitchenware. She’d been asking me to come work with her for years before I reached my tipping point as a chef. I wish the pay was better and the recipes more inventive, but Brie is the best boss I’ve had. She lets me set my own hours, and I can turn any kitchen into an office. Although Aurora’s is more of a closet than a cooking space. She keeps her winter socks in the utensil drawer and sweaters folded in the oven.
I set my mind to the slow-cooker macaroni and cheese I’m developing for Brie’s third cookbook,Even Better with Brie, deciding that it will be the best mac and cheese to ever have been cooked on a low temperature for a long period of time.
A man from the gym calls one evening when Aurora and Betty are at the theater. He’s noticed I haven’t been utilizing my new membership.
“Do you have five minutes to discuss how we can help you meet your fitness goals, Mrs.Bacon?” the man asks. Nate had signed me up for the gym using his last name—the only time I lost my temper with him.
I tell the man (okay, I yell) that I’m not Mrs.Bacon, that I never was Mrs.Bacon, and that I will never be Mrs.Bacon.
The man says exercise can improve my mental health and asks if I’d like to book an appointment with their massage therapist. It’s $180 for sixty minutes. I hang up.
I send three more texts to Nate and leave an indignant voicemail, asking him to explain why he dumped me, but he still doesn’t reply.
I hear from Brie’s finance guy. He’s had a call from the credit card company about a series of unusually high charges for cheese on my corporate card. He tells me that under no circumstances am I to spend four figures on dairy ever again.
One day I preheat the oven without thinking. Then I max out my Visa to buy Aurora new sweaters. Betty asks if she can help me look for an apartment. I don’t tell her I can’t afford first and last month’s rent.
The day after that, Nate finally texts me back. He agrees to talk in person.
We meet at our café, and I come prepared with an eviscerating speech. But my bloodlust disappears at the sight of him. Nate isn’t himself. I’ve never seen him look so bedraggled. His face is wan, his eyes red. When I give him back the engagement ring, he looks at it for five long seconds before accepting it. The man who just broke my heart seems as shattered as I am. Nate doesn’t answer my questions. I’m not sure he fully processes them. He apologizes profusely, his hand scraping over his face. He tells me the honeymoon is already half paid for—he thinks I should go to Tofino. And then he says goodbye.
Reality descends like a guillotine blade: I’m thirty years old, and I need to start all over.
I return to the nest.
I refuse Aurora’s offer to make me an appointment with a therapist.
“I’m worried about you,” she tells me.
Two days later, my parents come to pick me up.
I send George a text from the back seat of their car.
Please come home.
Chapter Six
We Were Ten
George and I were married on a crisp afternoon in late September under the apple tree in my backyard. My dress was a flouncy sheer curtain he’d found in Mimi’s dress-up trunk. George wore a woolly green sweater and a felt top hat that once belonged to his grandfather. We plucked my flowers, a tiny bouquet of dark autumn violets, from the western garden at the Big House. Our vows were written on scraps of paper from George’s ringed notebook, which we read to each other before closing the ceremony with a solemn handshake and a flourish of dried rice from Mimi’s pantry.
As I often was back then, I was mad at my mother.
