His gaze runs down my side. “I just want to make sure you’re being taken care of in a way that won’t cause trouble down the road. You still have needs, and I’m willing to assist.”
A laugh bursts from my chest. “Oh my god. Are you hitting on me and trying to present it as apity fuck?”
There’s a flicker of irritation in his gaze before he hides it behind a mild, genial smile. “Hey, I prefer models, but you’re no slouch. I’m just saying that I understand the situation and I’m around.”
This motherfucker.
The last time he pulled this shit, I assumed no one would take my side over his. Now, I know at least one person would.
I smile. “Caden,” I say quietly, “it will take the death of a lot more family members before I’m broken enough to think I can’t get better dick than yours.”
He stares at me—blank for a moment, as if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, and then angrily, as if he can’t believe I’ve saidit.
“God, were you always such a fucking bitch?” he asks. “Maybe your family died just to get away from you.”
My hands go to my stomach as if I just took a hit, and it feels as if I have. Because all along, no matter how much I tried to ignore it, I’ve been asking myself the same question.
• • •
I sleep late the next day and then go to the graveyard where Bronwyn and my dad and Jessie are buried. My mother is buriedinside the city limits of Maplewood, where we used to live—it would have been easy enough to have them all at the same place, but I was too shell-shocked at the time of their deaths to realize Jessie had set it up like that on purpose in her last wishes. So that she could, at last, have my dad all to herself.
I bring calla lilies for Bronwyn and hydrangeas for Jessie. My dad gets carnations because they’re cheap and he always thought flowers were a waste of money. It’s an inside joke. If he’s watching, he’ll get it. If Jessie’s by his side, she’ll be saying, “I don’t find that amusing.”
There I go again, maligning Jessie. At her grave, no less.
I wish my grief was less complex or simply made some kind of sense to me. I wish my grief would fade. And when I was in Italy, it did. It was still there, but it felt manageable.
Now it’s back in full force.
It’s miserably hot out so I dump Jessie’s flowers at her grave and move on. It’s not like she wanted me around in life and I’m sure that hasn’t changed now.
I press my hand to my dad’s headstone, remembering these gross frozen breakfasts he loved. None of us wanted them but he was forever insisting that one of us must have eaten one, so Bronwyn and I made a point of claiming to crave microwave eggs and bacon just to mess with him.
“I’m not letting anyone eat your frozen breakfasts, Dad.” I start to laugh but it comes out sad, the start of a sob, and I shut it down, digging my nails into my palms until the urge recedes.
He’d think this fake marriage was a terrible idea. He’d think I deserved better than Theo and, I’m sure, that Theo deserved better than me. I always believed he was so much wiser than me, and in some ways he was. But he wasn’t all-knowing.
He was wrong about those breakfasts, and I think he’d be wrong about this fake marriage too. Because right now, it’s sort of what’s holding me together.
I end with Bronwyn, the hardest. I want to tell her everything but I can’t do it—that would mean admitting I took what she wanted. “I’m sorry, Bronwyn,” I whisper. “I never thought I’d care about him. But nothing will happen.”
There’s no response, of course, but I feel all three of them united in their disappointment in me, and why shouldn’t they be? I’m fake-married. I may be about to ruin the company. And I’m kissing and holding the hand of a man Bronwyn crushed on obsessively for a year at least, a man I suspect I want for myself.
How is it that they’re all dead, I’m doing my absolute best, yet I’m still the family fuckup?
…
Theo:I’m flying into Newark Weds night. Is that okay?
Me:Let me check with Brian.
Theo:REBECCA.
Me:It was a JOKE.
I forward him an article entitled “Ten Ways to Prevent an Erection,” and a moment later the phone rings. I love that he’s calling me, even if I shouldn’t love it. Even if he’s calling me with hiscomplicationasleep on one side of him and a supermodel asleep on the other.
“Let me guess,” he says, “it’s two p.m. there and you’re on the couch, eating donut holes.”
