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“The best!” she cries. “Penny’s dad is hanging the piñata, and I want you to take the first hit!”
I pull a face. “It’s your birthday, kiddo.Youhave to take the first hit or it’s seven years bad luck.”
“Is that true?” She chews her lip, and I immediately regret my words.
“Not even a little bit, but you should still hit it first. I’ve got a mean swing, and I don’t want to be the one to spill all the candy,” I tell her quickly, forcing a smile. “It’s a good thing Ms. T couldn’t make it; she’d destroy it in two seconds flat.”
Grace giggles. “She really would.” She pauses, her blue eyes—so like her dad’s—taking on a distant look. “I miss her.”
“Me, too.”
“Can we go up to the bookstore soon?” Grace perches on my lap, an arm draped around my shoulders. “I want to pick a book for my birthday, like we always do. Won’t be my birthday otherwise.”
I flash her a mischievous grin. “We’ll kidnap your mom, throw her into the back of the car, and head up to see Ms. T right now. What do you say?”
“I say she’d kill us, and we wouldn’t get any cake.” Grace chuckles and leans into me, resting her temple against mine. “I’m glad you’re here, Auntie Summer. You need to visit more.”
I put my arms around her, stealing another hug. “I promise I will.”
Satisfied, she kisses the top of my head and takes off across the garden, rejoining her friends who seem to be in the middle of a game of tag. It’s a good garden for it, filled with tall bushes and mature trees, the layout full of countless nooks and crannies to hide and avoid being “it.”
When I was a kid, I used to envy kids like these. You don’t get invited to many parties when your mom is infamous.
“I’m so sorry!” Lyndsey appears, brandishing a wine bottle which she pours freely into my half-empty glass. “I swear we’ll catch up. Once Oscar finishes with the boil, I’ll have a moment to breathe, and then I’m joining you here and I’m not moving until it’s time for cake.”
I raise my glass to her. “I’ll be here.”
“You don’t want to… you know, mingle, until then? No pressure or anything.” She looks hopeful, and I don’t want to dampen her enthusiasm.
“Maybe after I’ve finished this,” I say, taking a sip of the cold white. “Liquid courage. I’m not used to parties where I’m not the hostess.”
She nods in understanding. “Gotcha. Well, you enjoy the sun, enjoy the music, and when you feel good and ready, you go on up and chat with some folks. They’re good people. My brother is here somewhere, too. I think you’ve met, but I can’t remember. My brain is like a sieve right now.”
“Will do,” I lie.
Exhaling in something like triumph, foolishly believing me, Lyndsey hurries back to her duties, pausing for a moment by Oscar to graze a fleeting kiss against his lips. They’re a beautiful couple, and their house is always filled with warmth and humor and laughter and love and amazing food. Legend has it that Oscar used to be a chef before he entered the cutthroat world of software engineering, and I can well and truly believe it. Every Christmas that I’ve spent with them, I swear, I gain twenty pounds.
But the feeling I get when I stay for the holidays is the feeling that unsettles me now, as I sit in my spot and watch, knowing I won’t say more than a handful of words to anyone but Lyndsey and Grace and Oscar until the party ends. No matter how hard they try to make me a part of their world, I’ll never belong to it. I’m family by marriage, sure, but that marriage was so short and severed so brutally that, sometimes, I’m convinced it never happened—that it was all just a mirage in the humid Mississippi heat. I never had the time tofeellike family, and though I’ve had two years with them, without Ben at my side I feel like an imposter: crashing a party I was never really invited to, but the host is too polite to kick me out.
It’s stupid, I know. The love I have for Grace, and the love she has for me, isn’t fake nor is the friendship I cherish with Lyndsey. Theydidwelcome me with open arms, the same way Ms. T did when I stumbled into her bookstore as a hollow-eyed, burned-out blackjack dealer. Still, it’ll always feel like I pushed my way in, somehow, and no one is willing to ask me to leave. Family is a foreign concept, and maybe that’s the real problem: I never had time to feel like family because I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like, and I will always,alwaysbe waiting for it to be pulled out from under me.
Just enjoy the goddamn party, and stop being such a martyr. You don’t win any points for acting miserable,I tell myself sternly, forcing another mouthful of wine down my throat. It’s bitter, burning my tongue.If you can’t do it for you, do it for Grace and Lyndsey, for Pete’s sake.
I drink down another sour gulp and look back at the terrace, only to find the awkward newcomer looking right back at me. But it’s not a welcoming expression on his face; it’s a frown of confusion, like he agrees that I shouldn’t be here at all.
2
SUMMER
The afternoon stretches into a sticky, sleepy haze, and every eyelash has a tiny weight on it, dragging my eyelids down, fighting to send me off into a wine-infused nap. I could use the sleep. I don’t sleep much. Five hours if I’m lucky, rarely in one unbroken cycle. My therapist said the nightmares would stop eventually—trouble is, I don’t know if I want them to; they’re the only place where Ben’s face is still clear as crystal.
“Brace yourself.” Lyndsey taps me on the shoulder, jolting me awake.
I wipe my mouth and blink frantically, disoriented for a moment. “Huh?”
“It’s game time.” She rolls her eyes and smiles, clearly worn out but hanging on to high spirits.
“I thought we did that?” I’d taken a couple of swipes at the piñata earlier, not hitting too hard so I wouldn’t ruin it for the kids. Although, it would’ve been a pretty cathartic kind of therapy.
