“Have you tried dating apps?” Owen asked.
“—just hasn’t found the right person,” Jane said.
“—stubborn and doing this just to hurt me, I just can’t understand—” Mom said, not listening to anyone else.
“Perhaps she’s been dating the wrong gender,” Abby suggested loudly, as Ollie concluded, “—could always use a sperm donor.”
The more they talked, the louder they became, everyone shouting to be sure their opinion was heard.
I slipped out of my seat and walked out the front door. I considered leaving, but there was still pie. So I sat on the front steps andgroaned, burying my face in my hands. It felt sort of cathartic, so I groaned again, louder, shaking my head with my tongue hanging out like they taught us in yoga. And then, really getting into it, I stood up and threw my arms wide in a Megan Rapinoe stance and shouted to the heavens, “THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING SINGLE.”
And then the shrubbery rustled and a voice said, “Um. Hello.”
My arms shot down to cover my breasts—a sensible reaction when confronted with an unknown assailant, second only to covering something useful, like my organs.
“Who’s there?”
Even as I was asking the question, a tall and (damn it all) handsome figure emerged.
“It’s me,” said Christopher Butkus.
“What were you doing in the bushes?”
“I heard a growling noise and I thought maybe there was a lost dog around somewhere.”
“You went looking for a potentially feral animal?”
He shrugged, hands in the pockets of his khakis. “It might have been hurt.”
I paused; I was not about to admit that the rabid dog he thought he’d heard was actually me. “It probably ran off.”
“Probably.” An awkward moment bloomed in the silence, in which I imagined we were both wondering what to say about me shouting into the darkness about being single.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” I said quickly.
“You too. I was just leaving.” He patted his (flat) stomach and added, “Stuffed. Are you heading home too?”
“No. I was just getting some air. Away from… well.” I didn’t feel like reminding him that my mom was insufferable.
“Ah.” He nodded. “Is everything okay? With you and Jane and… you know.”
Oh God. He had seen the video—I knew it. It was ridiculous to have even an inkling of hope that he still had feelings for me. In the dim light of the porch lamp and the crescent moon, I was glad he couldn’t see the hot flush coloring my cheeks.
“Yes, that. Well.” I tipped my head back, feigning deep thought. “Aside from the eternal humiliation and guilt I’ll feel for the rest of my life, yes, we’re okay.”
“I hoped that after the video disappeared, things would be all right.” He said it lightly, but his gaze never left my face.
“You hoped? What do you…” I stopped, my face heating up again, this time from the intensity of his eyes. I couldn’t look away. “Christopher?”
“I… I had to help. I had to at least try to help.”
“What did you do?”
“I called in a favor.”
This extraordinary admission had the same effect as if he had just reached out and grazed my cheek with his fingertips. I wondered. Iwondered.
It couldn’t be easy to make a video disappear; I knew it hadn’t been a simple favor. And yet he had done this. And he’d paid for the twins’ college. And he’d started a charity—but no, that hadn’t been for me, surely; I had simply given him the idea to do something with his money. But the other things. How could they not have been for me? And if he’d still wanted to help me, even after seeing that heinous video…
