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Under the table, Kane’s hand stays plastered on my leg.

Connor taps his glass with his knife. It rings loud enough that Aunt Sherry jumps.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry. Uh. Everybody. Can I⁠—”

“Go ahead, honey,” my mother encourages.

Connor stands up. He’s got his hand on the back of Vivian’s chair now, and Vivian is looking up at him with her chin tilted and her hand over her mouth like she’s going to cry.

“So,” he says, “this has been a rough couple of months for this family. Nobody’s gonna pretend otherwise. And Viv and I have been talking about the right way to do this, and we decided the right way was in front of everybody. No more sneaking around.”

Somebody’s fork scrapes on a plate.

“On Friday, I asked Vivian to marry me,” Connor says. “And she said yes.”

Vivian’s hand comes off her mouth and there’s a ring on it. She holds it up and turns it so the light gets in it.

My mother lets out that same high cry.

“Oh,” Aunt Sherry says. “Oh, my.”

Vivian stands up to join him.

“I know how it looks,” Vivian says. “And I’m not going to sit here and pretend it happened the pretty way, because it didn’t. But you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with, right?” She looks around the table at everyone but me. “We fought it for a long time. We really did. And in the end, you can’t deny something like this. You can only lie about it, and we’re done lying.”

“We’re done lying,” Connor agrees.

“It’s real,” Vivian says. “It’s the realest thing either of us has ever had.”

My mother starts clapping.

She claps alone for about two seconds. Then she says, “Well, come on,” and Aunt Sherry joins, and then Jenna, and then Uncle Bub, and then most of the table.

Aunt Virginia does not clap. She sets down her wine and folds her arms.

Kane does not clap, either.

“I want to say something,” my mother says once the awkward, muted applause dies down.

She stays standing behind Vivian. She’s got her fingers curled around the top of the chair.

“This family has been through a terrible time,” she says. “We lost your father a year ago today. A year ago today. And instead of coming together, we’ve spent this whole winter airing everybody’s business out in the street, in front of the neighbors, with the phone ringing, and things being said on the internet that I will not repeat at my own table.”

Nobody says anything.

“What happened between these two,” she says, “is between these two. It’s a private matter. It was going to be dealt with privately, in this family, the way things always have been. And instead, somebody decided to make a spectacle of it in my living room on Christmas Eve, in front of fifty people, with children in the house.”

“They were in the den,” I mutter.

“With children in the house,” she repeats. “And I’ll tell you the truth, since we’re all being so honest tonight. The affair was a sin, and it hurt, and I don’t excuse it. But what was done at Christmas did more damage to this family than anything else that has happened in it. Vivian has lost work. She can’t go to the store. I couldn’t leave my own house for three weeks. That’s not the affair that did that.”

I put my fork down.

This bitch cannot be serious.

“Now,” she says, “I would like us to move forward. I think the way we start is very simple.” She turns and looks at me. “Delilah. You’re the eldest. You’ll say a few words for your sister, won’t you?”

I’m so stunned that I can’t even form words.