My husband left me for a woman who “still takes care of herself,” then looked at the stomach that carried our twins and said, “I didn’t sign up for this.” So I paid a man $300 to be my date at the twins’ party at his new pool. He laughed and asked my date his price, out loud, and my date answered.
The night he left, Imran stood in our bedroom doorway with his gym bag already zipped.
“I met somebody,” he said.
I was folding Jaylen’s soccer socks.
I kept folding them.
Then his eyes went down, slow, from my face to my waist.
“She actually takes care of herself, Caroline.”
He waited, like there was a part two.
There was.
“Look at you. I didn’t sign up for this.”
Twelve years married.
Two babies at once.
One C-section, a back that never came right, and forty pounds I carried around like a coat I couldn’t take off.
He used to rub my feet while I was pregnant with them and call me a house.
Laughing.
I laughed too, back then.
Her name was Brittany.
She ran the finance desk at his dealership, she was twelve years younger than me, and her phone had more pictures of her own legs on a boat than I’d taken of my kids in a year.
He brought her to Jaylen’s soccer game the third week.
He introduced her to the other parents as “my second chance.”
I stood behind the bleachers and pretended to look for my keys.
For months after that I showered with the light off.
I’m not proud of it.
I just couldn’t stand the mirror saying it in his voice.
Then, nine days before the twins turned ten, Harper climbed into my bed with her tablet.
“Dad’s doing our party at his new house,” she said. “With the pool. You HAVE to come.”
“Baby, that’s your dad’s house.”
“Jaylen already told him you’re coming.”
“Is Brittany going to be there?”
Harper pulled the blanket up to her chin.
She didn’t answer.
That was an answer.
The next morning Imran texted me the address.
Then a second text, right under it.
“Kids’ pool party, maybe skip the swimsuit. Their friends will be there. Just saying.”
Then a third.
“And don’t make it weird.”
Every sane part of me said stay home, send the gifts with them, watch the video later.
Instead I did something stupid at one in the morning.
I paid a man.
Not like THAT.
His name was Quinn, he did dinner theater on weekends, and he had a page on a booking site for wedding plus-ones and office parties.
Three hundred dollars for one Saturday afternoon.
All he had to do was stand next to me and look like he wanted to.
I know how that sounds.
I’m forty-two. I sell insurance over the phone. I know.
But Imran had spent a year telling everyone my life stopped when his started, and I wanted him to see one afternoon where it hadn’t.
Saturday, Quinn rang my bell at noon and I nearly sent him home.
He was big through the shoulders, tan, easy in his own skin.
The sort of guy waiters automatically hand the check to.
I was in a long blue cover-up over a one-piece I’d bought online and returned twice.
“You can still back out,” I said. “I’ll pay you anyway.”
“I’m not backing out.”
He took one look at the gift bags on my counter and asked which one was Harper’s and which one was Jaylen’s.
Then he looked at me a second too long.
“Can I ask you something first? Is this about making him sick to his stomach?”
“Maybe.”
“Or is it about you wanting somebody to pick you on purpose?”
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
I just grabbed the bags.
Imran’s new place was out in Pflugerville, the kind of subdivision where every mailbox matches.
The backyard gate stood propped open with a cooler.
Twenty-some kids in the water, a speaker thumping something with a lot of bass, his coworkers holding paper plates of brisket by the grill.
Harper found me before anyone else did.
She grabbed my phone, jammed her cheek against mine at the edge of the pool and held it out.
“Birthday selfie. Smile like you MEAN it, Mom.”
I did.
For about four seconds I really did.
Jaylen waved at me from the deep end with both arms.
Then Imran turned around from the grill.
His face went flat.
It went flatter when Quinn’s hand settled at the small of my back.
He crossed the patio with Brittany on his arm, sunglasses up in her platinum hair, her other hand already holding her phone.
Brittany got to me first.
“Caroline. Oh my God, you came.” She looked at my cover-up. “Good for you. Honestly. That takes guts.”
“Well,” Imran said.
He looked Quinn up and down.
Then me.
“So who’s this?”
Quinn put out his hand. “Quinn. Good to meet you.”
Imran left the hand hanging there.
He laughed instead, a big one, aimed at the whole patio.
“Okay, come on, man. What’s the going rate?”
Nobody at the grill was talking anymore.
“Seriously. Hourly? Is there a FAT-GIRL SURCHARGE?”
He turned to the guys at the grill. “Twelve years, fellas. Tell me I’m crazy.”
Brittany snorted into her drink.
“Imran,” she said. “Stop.”
She was SMILING when she said it.
She had the phone up.
Somebody’s kid in the shallow end stopped splashing.
My whole face went hot.
I looked for Harper and Jaylen and couldn’t find them, and for one awful second all I wanted was the car.
Quinn’s thumb pressed once against my knuckles.
He didn’t take his eyes off Imran.
“You’ve got that turned around,” he said.
“Oh yeah?” Imran grinned at Brittany. “Enlighten me.”
“She tried to pay me,” Quinn said. “I sent it back.”
He looked at me, then at Imran again.
“I’m the one who asked to come.”
Imran’s grin slipped.
Just a little.
Just at one corner.
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “Bet she’s paying extra for that line.”
Quinn only nodded at him, very slowly, like he was memorizing something.
Twenty minutes after that, Quinn walked over to the grill and did the thing I’d been too scared to do for TWELVE YEARS.
I still can’t decide if I’m ashamed of it.
I watched Brittany go out the side gate with her sandals in one hand, crying so hard she missed the latch twice.
And Imran stood by the grill with the tongs still in his hand, not saying one word.
The tongs
Quinn asked him to apologize.
He walked up to the grill and said, “You owe Caroline an apology. She’s right here.”
No punch. No threat. Just a sentence I’d rehearsed in the shower and swallowed in every room where Imran might hear it.
I stepped out from behind Quinn.
Imran tapped the tongs against the grill.
“For what?”
That was where his trouble started.
Twenty minutes earlier, though, I was still beside the pool, trying to work my hand out of Quinn’s without making it look like another rejection.
He let go immediately.
“Are you okay?”
“Please don’t ask me that here.”
“All right.”
I picked up the gift bags. One handle had twisted around the other, and I couldn’t separate them. Apparently I could arrange a fake date on the internet but couldn’t operate string.
Imran took them out of my hands.
“I’ll put these away.”
“I want to give them to the kids.”
“They’re swimming.”
He carried the bags past the other presents and set them beside the gate.
Brittany lowered her phone long enough to check the screen.
I pulled mine out. There was the picture Harper had taken. My cheek against hers. My smile, before I’d started checking who could see it.
Under the picture was a notification from the booking site.
The refund was real.
Three hundred dollars, sent back before we’d left my house.
I held the screen toward Quinn.
“You should have told me.”
“You were trying to get the bags into the car.”
“You still should have told me.”
“You’re right.”
He said it without adding anything.
I nearly cried over that, which was inconvenient. We hadn’t even found somewhere to sit.
Then Harper came around the pool.
“Mom, you’re staying for our jump, right?”
The gift bags
“Of course,” I said.
She held up one finger.
“One jump. Then pictures. Jaylen wants a running start, but Dad said no running.”
“Your dad’s right about that.”
It cost me nothing to say it. I wanted credit anyway.
At their ninth birthday, we’d stood at the edge of the community pool and counted down together. Harper went on two. Jaylen accused her of cheating. I landed so badly that water went up my nose, and both of them laughed until they couldn’t count anymore.
This year, Harper had mentioned the jump every time she mentioned the party.
She touched my cover-up.
“You brought your swimsuit.”
“Under here.”
“Good.”
She ran back to tell Jaylen. I stayed where she’d left me.
Richard came over from the grill. He worked with Imran, and he’d been to our house often enough to know which drawer held the bottle opener.
He used to bring the twins birthday cards with their names spelled correctly. That put him ahead of several actual relatives.
“Good to see you, Caroline.”
“You too.”
He looked Imran’s way.
“He’s got a lot going on today. Trying to keep everybody happy.”
I looked at the gift bags beside the gate.
“Is that what he’s doing?”
Richard rubbed his mouth.
“I didn’t like that joke.”
“You could tell him.”
“I will.”
“While I’m still here?”
He looked toward the grill again.
Quinn stood beside me, holding nothing, offering nothing I hadn’t asked for. I appreciated it and hated that I appreciated it. Standing next to a woman without taking over her afternoon shouldn’t require a medal.
Imran came back with Brittany.
“We’re doing a family picture before cake,” he said.
“Fine.”
“Just keep it simple. No boyfriend production.”
He gave Quinn a look.
“Nobody wants to explain that to the kids.”
“They know his name,” I said. “That’s all they’ve asked.”
Brittany lifted her phone.
“I can get some nice pictures of everyone.”
“I’d like one with the twins.”
“Sure.”
Imran touched her elbow.
“We’ll sort it out.”
He used the same tone he’d used when the twins were babies and somebody asked whether I needed help. Pleasant. Finished. No reason for anyone else to stay interested.
I went to the gate, picked up my gifts, and carried them to the other presents.
Imran followed me.
“You didn’t need to move those.”
“They’re birthday presents. This is where the presents are.”
“Caroline.”
I kept hold of the handles until he stepped back.
Then he leaned close enough that nobody else had to hear him.
“You can leave them here. You don’t have to stay.”
The chair by the fence
I chose a chair by the fence because it faced the pool.
Quinn pulled another one over, then stopped.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
He sat. I folded the edge of my cover-up under my legs.
“I don’t want a scene.”
“What do you want?”
“For him to stop.”
“Do you want me to say something?”
“No. Let me.”
Imran was returning to the grill. I called his name, and he came back with the expression he used when a customer wanted something he’d already decided they weren’t getting.
I stood because I didn’t want him looking down at me.
“Can we have two minutes?”
“We’re having a party.”
“Then one.”
He folded his arms.
I kept my voice low. I’d done enough whispering during our marriage to qualify for a library pension.
“Don’t talk about my body again.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I made a joke.”
“Then tell a different one.”
He looked past me at Quinn.
“Is this coming from him?”
“No.”
“Because you didn’t used to be this sensitive.”
I nearly said I hadn’t used to cry while buying underwear either. I didn’t want to hand him another thing he could repeat at the grill.
“The kids invited me. I came for them. Let me be here.”
“Nobody’s stopping you.”
“You told me to leave.”
“I said you could. There’s a difference.”
Behind him, Brittany was taking a picture of the pool. She turned the phone toward us.
I pointed at it.
“Please don’t film this.”
“It’s a birthday video,” she said.
“Then film the birthday.”
She lowered it, but she didn’t put it away.
Imran made a little sound through his nose.
“You brought an actor to my children’s party and now you’re directing.”
Quinn stood up.
I put my hand out without looking at him.
“Please.”
He sat again.
That should have helped. I was doing everything Imran claimed he wanted. No scene. No confrontation from another man. A private request in almost no words.
He raised his voice.
“Look, Caroline, I can’t be responsible for how you feel about yourself.”
Richard looked over.
A woman beside him stopped reaching for a napkin.
I could have given them the whole marriage right there. The gym bag. The dark bathroom. The things he’d said while I was holding laundry.
Instead I said, “You can be responsible for what comes out of your mouth.”
Imran laughed.
“There she is.”
He turned toward the grill as if he’d brought back a specimen.
“Same old Caroline.”
Then Imran walked away before I could answer.
Quinn shifted his chair back into place. He didn’t touch me.
I sat on the edge of mine because the cover-up had twisted underneath me.
Across the pool, Harper and Jaylen were arguing cheerfully about who would count for the jump. They were making plans that included me.
I put my phone face down on my knee.
Richard left his plate by the grill and came toward us.
I stood up to meet him.
He said, “Maybe you could make this easier on the kids.”
Richard’s paper plate
“What do you mean?”
He looked at Quinn, then back at me.
“Things are getting uncomfortable.”
“For who?”
“Everybody.”
There were people swimming, people eating, people trying to keep paper napkins from blowing into the water. Most of them were managing their discomfort beautifully.
Richard lowered his voice.
“You could slip out now. Before the cake. Tell them you’ve got something you need to do.”
“Them being my children?”
“You can see them tomorrow.”
I had expected him to tell me he’d spoken to Imran.
I stood there holding that expectation like a coat nobody wanted to take.
“Did you ask him to stop?”
“I told him it was getting out of hand.”
“And?”
“He said you two have always joked like that.”
“Do I look amused?”
Richard’s eyes moved toward Quinn again.
“Bringing somebody was probably a mistake.”
There it was. A mistake he could discuss with the person least likely to shout at him.
“Yes,” I said.
Quinn looked down at his hands.
“I made a mistake. I should have come alone.”
Richard nodded too quickly.
“So you understand.”
“I understand you want me to fix what he said by leaving.”
“That’s not fair.”
I nearly laughed. Richard could still recognize unfairness when it had his name on it.
He reached for my elbow. I moved it.
“I’ve known you both a long time,” he said.
“Then you know whose birthday this is.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and went back toward the grill.
I sat down hard enough to make the chair scrape.
Quinn waited.
“Say it,” I said.
“Say what?”
“That I shouldn’t have brought you.”
“I don’t think that.”
“I do.”
He nodded once.
“All right.”
That made me angrier than an argument would have.
“Quit agreeing with everything, Quinn.”
“I’m not agreeing. I’m letting you finish.”
I looked at him then. Really looked. He had come to a children’s party with a woman he barely knew, returned the fee, and spent most of the afternoon being told to sit down.
I was treating him like another bad decision with shoes.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize for him.”
“I’m apologizing for me.”
“Okay.”
A ball landed beside my chair. I tossed it back toward the pool.
Harper called my name.
“Can we do our picture now?”
“Yes.”
I stood before anybody could suggest otherwise.
Brittany was already beside the pool with her phone held sideways. Imran moved next to the twins.
Harper reached for me, but Brittany said, “One second. Let me get this first.”
I stopped.
It was such a small instruction. One second. People say it in grocery aisles.
Imran put his arm around Jaylen. Harper leaned toward the space she’d left for me.
“Mom,” she said.
“In a second, sweetheart,” I said.
I hated myself for helping.
Brittany took the picture.
Then she handed her phone to Richard and stepped beside Imran.
I stood there with my hand half raised.
“Now one of all of us,” Imran said.
He didn’t look at me.
Richard lifted the phone.
I could have walked into the picture. There was room. I could have put my arm around Harper and smiled my way through anything for her.
But Imran glanced at me over Brittany’s head, and I stopped.
The twins smiled when Richard told them to.
That birthday picture existed now. Their father, his girlfriend, and my children, while I stood six feet away.
I couldn’t go back and be braver before the shutter.
Richard lowered the phone.
Harper came straight toward me.
“Now ours.”
Imran looked at the time.
“We need to get everybody fed.”
He took Richard’s paper plate off the chair and handed it to me.
“Would you mind getting the kids some food?”
The blue cover-up
I held the plate.
I knew exactly what would happen if I took it to the food. I’d serve the twins, then somebody else’s child would ask for something, and I’d do that too. Later Imran would describe a perfectly nice party.
Caroline helped. Everybody got along.
I put the plate on the chair.
“The picture takes ten seconds.”
“Here we go,” he said.
Brittany looked at her phone.
“I got several nice ones.”
“Of me with my children?”
“We’re still taking pictures, Caroline.”
“Then take this one.”
She gave a little laugh.
“Quit snapping at me, Caroline.”
Harper was waiting beside me. Jaylen had gone back toward the pool steps.
I put my arm around my daughter.
“Go get your brother. We’ll do it together.”
She went without having to carry a message to anybody. I was grateful for that much.
Imran stepped close.
“You need to stop.”
“Stop asking for a photograph?”
“Stop making every single thing about you.”
Brittany held her phone against her chest.
“I’m trying to help. I don’t know why you’re angry with me.”
I wanted to say, Start with the surcharge. We could work our way forward from there.
Instead I asked, “Did you record what he said when we arrived?”
Her eyes went to Imran.
“Some of it.”
“Delete it.”
“I wasn’t going to post it.”
“Delete it anyway.”
Imran put his hand over hers.
“She’s got pictures of the kids on there.”
“I didn’t ask her to delete those.”
“You’re not going through her phone.”
“I didn’t ask to.”
My face was hot again. That was the part I hated. He could say anything in a normal speaking voice, and my body would make me look like the problem.
Quinn came to stand beside the chair.
“Caroline, do you want to take a minute?”
Imran laughed at him.
“Does that count against the booking?”
Brittany pressed her lips together. Another laugh she didn’t quite let out.
I took my phone from the chair.
The refund notification was still there. Under it, Imran’s messages were three taps away.
I could show everybody. I could prove he’d started before I’d arrived.
But the first thing they’d ask was whether I’d really hired Quinn.
And I had.
My thumb stayed on the screen.
Imran leaned toward me.
“You’re embarrassing yourself. Take him home. I’ll tell the kids you weren’t feeling well.”
“I promised them I’d stay.”
“Then stop this.”
He said it with his hand extended toward me, palm up, as though I was the one holding something dangerous.
Richard stood behind him.
I looked at Richard.
He looked away.
That hurt worse than I’d expected. I’d been holding on to the idea that someone who knew us would eventually step between the joke and me. Richard went back to the grill instead.
I picked up my purse.
Quinn didn’t move toward the gate.
“Do you want to leave?” he said.
“I want to disappear.”
He waited.
There was a difference, and I was furious that I had to work it out in front of him.
Across the pool, Harper had found Jaylen. They were coming back together.
I could go. I could let Imran tell them I had a headache. I could spend Sunday explaining a headache I never had.
I put the purse down.
Imran smiled.
“Good. Let’s just have a nice afternoon.”
He went back to the grill.
For a few seconds, he’d won everything he wanted. I’d stopped talking. Brittany still had the video. My photograph with the twins had become a request he could approve later.
Quinn looked at my phone.
“Forget proving anything on my account, Caroline.”
“He’ll tell everyone.”
“Then don’t leave it to him.”
I gripped the chair.
Harper called from the pool, “Mom, are we still doing it?”
I couldn’t make my mouth produce yes.
That was the worst part. My daughter had asked me to jump into a swimming pool, and I was waiting for her father’s permission.
Quinn moved beside me.
“What do you want me to do?”
I handed him my purse.
“Hold this.”
Three hundred dollars
I walked toward Harper and Jaylen first.
“One minute,” I said. “Get your towels ready.”
“Picture first?” Harper said.
“Picture first.”
“Then jump,” Jaylen said.
“Then jump.”
They went toward their chairs. Their plans were still simple. I intended to keep them that way.
Quinn followed me halfway across Imran’s patio.
I stopped him.
“Don’t tell them we’re dating.”
“I haven’t.”
“I know. Don’t start.”
He nodded.
“And don’t tell them you fell for me on the drive over.”
His mouth moved at one corner.
“It was a fairly short drive.”
I laughed once. It came out ugly, but it came out.
I opened Imran’s messages.
There was the address. Then the swimsuit. Then the warning not to make it weird.
I held the phone where Quinn could read it.
He looked toward the grill.
“Does she know he sent that?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want to say?”
I wanted a good answer. Something polished enough that nobody could laugh between the words.
What I had was the truth, and parts of it made me look ridiculous.
“I’m going to tell them I paid you.”
“All right.”
“All of it.”
“All right.”
“If he laughs, let him.”
Quinn handed my purse back.
“Can I ask him for an apology?”
I looked at Imran. He was moving meat from one side of the grill to the other, talking to Richard as though we’d all returned to our proper places.
“Yes.”
Quinn walked over.
“You owe Caroline an apology. She’s right here.”
And Imran said, “For what?”
I stepped beside Quinn.
Brittany lifted her phone again.
This time I didn’t ask her to lower it.
“I paid him three hundred dollars,” I said.
Imran’s face opened into a grin.
“There we go.”
“I booked him. He sent the money back. Both things happened.”
Richard put down his plate.
“I wanted you to think somebody wanted to stand next to me,” I said. “That’s what I spent it on.”
Brittany’s phone stopped moving.
Imran looked around for the laugh.
“Well, at least you’re admitting it.”
“Yes.”
He waited for me to explain it away.
I didn’t.
Then I held out my phone.
“Now you.”
Brittany’s camera
Imran didn’t take it.
“What is this?”
“Your message.”
“I know what I sent you.”
“Read it.”
He glanced at the screen.
“This is ridiculous.”
Brittany stepped closer. Her phone was still pointed toward us.
I turned mine so she could see.
She read it without speaking.
Imran reached toward my hand.
I pulled it back.
“You can read from there.”
“Caroline, I’ve got a grill going. We have guests. You’re standing here dragging up a private conversation because you’re upset about a joke.”
“What joke?” Quinn said.
Imran looked at him.
“You were here.”
“Say which one.”
“Oh, don’t do that. Don’t stand there playing the boyfriend when she just admitted you’re hired.”
Quinn moved half a step away from me.
Imran had been waiting for a contest between men. Quinn gave him space to look directly at his former wife.
I kept the phone out.
Brittany said, “You told her not to wear a swimsuit?”
“I said maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because I know Caroline.”
He turned to me.
“I know how you get. I was trying to save you an uncomfortable afternoon, and then you show up with this whole performance.”
Richard looked at my screen.
“Her kids asked her to swim,” he said.
Imran turned on him.
“Do you want to cook?”
Richard didn’t move.
Brittany lowered her phone.
“You said she didn’t want pictures.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
Imran shook his head.
“I said she can be funny about pictures. Which she can. You all just saw it.”
“You took the picture without me,” I said.
“We were going to take another one.”
“When?”
“When you stopped making a fuss.”
Brittany stared at him. I didn’t feel sorry for her yet. Her laugh was still sitting in my ears.
“You filmed him asking about a surcharge,” I said.
She looked down at her phone.
“I thought he was just being…”
She stopped.
“Funny?” I said.
She didn’t answer.
Imran pointed the tongs toward me.
“She knows me. She knows when I’m joking. You’re the only person here who wants to turn this into something.”
Brittany said, “Don’t bring me into it.”
“You were laughing.”
“I know.”
That stopped him for a second.
She rubbed her face with the hand that wasn’t holding the phone.
“I know I was.”
He looked toward Richard.
“Can somebody please tell her nobody meant anything?”
Richard shook his head.
“I should’ve said something when you started.”
“Thanks. Very helpful.”
“I asked her to leave,” Richard said. “I should’ve asked you to stop.”
Imran put the tongs down, then picked them up again.
“You don’t know twelve years of marriage from ten minutes at a party.”
“No,” Richard said. “I know what you said in front of me.”
Brittany held her phone out to Imran.
He didn’t take that one either.
“Listen to it,” she said.
“I’m not doing this.”
She played a few seconds.
His own voice came out of the speaker. Loud. Pleased with itself.
The surcharge.
The laugh afterward.
Brittany stopped it before anything else played.
Nobody at the grill reached for food.
Imran pointed toward her phone.
“Delete that.”
“I asked her to,” I said.
“Then we’re all in agreement.”
He smiled like he’d found the exit.
I almost let him have it. Twelve years of practice will get your hand onto a door before you remember why you shut it.
Brittany said, “Would you say that to me?”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“If I gained weight.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Would you?”
“We’re not discussing some imaginary thing right now.”
I put my phone away.
For the first time that afternoon, I didn’t have to supply the next question.
Brittany did.
“If I had children?”
Imran looked toward the pool, then back at her.
“You’re different.”
“How?”
“You care. You work at it. You wouldn’t just…”
He stopped.
Brittany’s mouth opened. No words came.
I had heard the end of that sentence in our bedroom. She heard enough of it beside his grill.
Imran reached for her arm.
“Don’t do this. You know what I mean.”
She stepped away.
“Yes,” she said.
He looked at me.
“Happy now?”
I wanted to be. I wanted the clean satisfaction people get in movies when somebody awful runs out of places to hide.
My hands were shaking around a purse with sunscreen leaking inside it.
“Apologize,” I said.
He looked at Quinn, then Richard.
“I’m sorry if you were offended.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
I waited.
Brittany wiped her face.
Imran’s voice got louder.
“What exactly do you want me to say?”
Quinn said nothing.
Richard said nothing.
I said, “What you did.”
Imran swallowed.
“I made a joke about your weight.”
Nobody helped him.
“It was cruel,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
“And the picture,” Brittany said.
He turned toward her.
She held his stare.
“You told me she didn’t want to be in it.”
Imran looked back at me.
“I shouldn’t have done that either.”
Richard stepped away from the grill.
“Let’s get the picture she asked for.”
Brittany unlocked her phone. She found the recording, deleted it, then opened the folder where deleted videos went and removed it there too.
She held the screen toward me until I nodded.
Then she took off her sandals.
Imran reached for her again.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“We have guests.”
She picked up her sandals.
“Then stay with them.”
“You’re really doing this over one joke?”
She was crying now, trying to get the strap of one sandal out from under the other.
“Don’t come over tonight.”
“Brittany.”
“You can get your things another day.”
She went toward the gate.
Imran stayed by the grill with the tongs in his hand.
I still don’t like remembering how long I let myself look at him.
But I did look.
When he could speak again, he said, “You made me look like an idiot in my own yard.”
“You supplied the material.”
The picture Harper wanted
Richard held out his hand for my phone.
“Caroline. Let me take it.”
I gave it to him.
Harper and Jaylen were waiting with their towels over their shoulders. Harper came to my left side. Jaylen stood on my right, then complained that Harper was getting more of my arm.
I had two arms. They’d been arguing over the distribution for ten years.
“Move closer,” Richard said.
“We are close,” Jaylen said.
“Your mom’s half out of the picture.”
That got him moving.
Imran came away from the grill.
“Let’s get one of everybody.”
I looked at him.
“This one’s mine.”
He stopped.
Richard didn’t lower the phone.
Harper put her arm around my middle. I nearly pulled the cover-up across the place where her hand rested.
Then I put my hand over hers instead.
Jaylen leaned against my shoulder.
“Smile like you mean it,” Harper said.
“I remember the instructions.”
Richard took three pictures.
He handed me the phone, and both twins crowded in to inspect them.
Harper chose the second.
Jaylen chose the third because his eyes were closed in the second and he claimed Harper had done something.
I kept both.
Richard waited until they went to put their towels down.
“I owe you an apology too.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted it quiet.”
“I know.”
“I put that on you.”
I nodded. He didn’t get a hug for identifying his own behavior. He did get a chance to do better.
He went back to the grill and took a clean plate.
Quinn stood beside my chair.
“Do you want me to go?”
“Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then stay.”
“Okay.”
No promise. No sudden kiss with my ex watching. I’d spent enough of that afternoon arranging people for an audience.
I opened the booking page once more. The refund said $300.00.
I showed Quinn.
“You don’t get to pretend you didn’t do something kind.”
“I won’t.”
“And I don’t owe you a date.”
“No.”
“Good.”
He smiled.
Harper called from the pool.
“Mom. The jump.”
I put my phone in my purse and handed it to Quinn.
Then I untied the cover-up.
One, two
The knot caught.
Of course it did.
I’d survived the conversation I’d avoided for twelve years, and now a piece of string wanted a turn.
Quinn looked away while I worked it loose.
“You can help with the knot,” I said. “We’re not in a period drama.”
He held one end while I pulled the other. The bow came apart.
I took off the cover-up and put it on the chair.
Nobody applauded. Thank God. I wanted to go swimming, not open a bridge.
Imran was still near the grill. He looked toward me, then down at the plate Richard handed him.
I walked past.
“Caroline.”
I stopped, but I didn’t go back.
“We’ll talk later.”
“About the twins.”
He pressed his mouth shut.
“About the twins,” he said.
That was all he got.
At the pool steps, Harper held out her hand.
“You okay?”
“Yes, baby.”
She looked at my face another second.
Then she said, “You have to hold both our hands.”
“I know the rules.”
Jaylen came to my other side.
“No running start,” I said.
“I know.”
“And Harper counts.”
“She cheats.”
“I count beautifully,” Harper said.
I laughed. A full laugh this time. Jaylen smiled before he could stop himself.
The water moved against the edge. My feet were bare on the concrete. There was nowhere left to tuck the stomach Imran had discussed with his coworkers.
Harper squeezed my fingers.
I squeezed back.
Quinn sat in the chair by the fence with my purse beside him. My gifts were with the other birthday presents. The picture of me and my children was in my phone.
There was cake still to cut. I would be there for that.
Jaylen bent his knees.
“Ready?”
“Wait,” Harper said.
He groaned.
She leaned into me, pressing her cheek against my arm.
“I’m glad you came.”
My throat hurt.
I kissed the top of her head.
“Me too.”
She straightened and lifted our joined hands.
“One.”
Jaylen crouched lower.
“Two.”
Harper jumped early, just like last year.
This time I went with her.
If this one stayed with you, send it to someone who’s been talked out of being in the picture.
Family betrayals have a way of turning keys, money, and trust into weapons – much like in “My Mother Took My Office Key Before I Flew Out” and “My Brother Took My Key To Our Father’s House”. For another story about being underestimated by someone close, read “My Son Let Himself In With My Spare Key”.
