Page 36 of Pretend You Love Me

The extended Quinn family fills the house, aunts, uncles, cousins, Daniel’s younger brother Jack and his wife Emma, everyone moving through the space with the ease of people who have attended many of these gatherings and know what is expected of them. They’re lovely, really, warm and funny and genuinely interested in the twins, but there’s something about watching them that makes my chest ache. They belong here in a way I never have, fundamentally separate from the architecture of Quinn family identity and yet completely engrained in it.

Daniel is already in the thick of it, having been here for more than two hours already: laughing with a cousin near the kitchen island, relaxed and charming, He takes a minute to greet me and steal Milo before returning to his audience. Milo now on his hip like a prop in a lifestyle advertisement, completely at home inside the version of himself the Quinn family has always believed in.

Aunt Margaret, Diane’s older sister with the laugh that sounds like someone strangling a goose, turns to me with a plate of crackers arranged in a perfect spiral. “Elsie,” she says, her voice carrying the warmth of someone who has never once doubted her place in the world. “You look wonderful. Motherhood agrees with you.”

“Thanks,” I say, already reaching for a cracker. “The twins are keeping me busy.”

“They’re beautiful,” she says, already turning toward the living room. “Just like their father.”

The sentence is impossible to respond to without sounding either falsely modest or aggressively competitive, and I nod with the smile that doesn’t reach my eyes.

Across the room, Daniel is explaining something to a circle of cousins, his free hand moving through the air to illustrate whatever point he’s making. They watch him with the attention people reserve for those they genuinely love, faces relaxed, laughter immediate.

This is what makes it impossible. It’s this, the perfect reality where Daniel is the man the Quinn family believes him to be, where I am the lucky woman who married him, where our life together is what it appears to be.

“More wine?” Jack asks, already reaching for the bottle. “You look like you could use it.”

“Please,” I say, already handing over my glass. “It’s been a day.”

He pours with care. Unlike Daniel, who fills space with the confidence of someone who’s never once worried about whether he belongs, Jack has always carried himself with quiet certainty, not dramatic or attention-seeking, just completely secure in who he is.

“Emma is in the kitchen,” he says, already turning toward the living room. “She was asking about you.”

I nod, already moving in that direction, and something like genuine excitement fills me. Emma Quinn is what my mother would have called “good people”, not pretending to be nice or aggressively supportive, just genuinely kind in a way that feels like actual honesty rather than social obligation.

The kitchen is as I expected, serving dishes being arranged on counters, conversations overlapping in comfortable chaos. Emma stands at the island with a serving spoon in one hand and her phone in the other, her expression caught between amusement and concentration.

“Elsie,” she says, already reaching for a napkin. “You’re a lifesaver. Jack was about to send a search party.”

“Sorry,” I say, already moving toward the sink. “Traffic was worse than expected.”

It’s not a lie, not really, there was traffic, it was worse than expected, but my words aren’t completely honest, and I think she notices that. Emma doesn’t push though, she just nods and returns to whatever she was doing before I arrived, and I’m struck, not for the first time, by how much easier it is to be here when she is.

From the living room, I can hear Diane’s voice. She does this constantly, the specific, careful management that makes Quinn family gatherings feel like very expensive corporate press releases about family. Not overtly controlling or dramatically manipulative, just the quiet, persistent expectation that everyone will exude the version of happiness Diane has decided is appropriate.

“She’s in her element,” Emma says, following my gaze. “Fourteen people in one room and somehow she knows what everyone’s doing at all times. It’s actually impressive if you don’t think about it too hard.”

I laugh despite myself before helping Emma finish the food.

Dinner unfolds in its own patterns, serving dishes passed with careful attention to who receives what first, conversations that flow as Diane directs, compliments delivered with warmth that never quite becomes actual connection. I move through it with efficiency, reaching for serving spoons before being asked, laughing at the right moments, discussing the twins’ milestones with aunts who coo over developmental updates with genuine interest.

Across the table, Diane raises her wine glass with the gesture that means she’s about to make an announcement. “To family,” she says, her voice carrying the warmth that appears when she’s genuinely pleased with how things are going. “The one thing you can always count on.”

We raise our glasses, mine with water because I’m driving and something complicated settles behind my ribs. Not anger, exactly, though there’s plenty of that. More like sadness. Losing my parents changed my life and now I feel like I am losing his parents too, even if they are not perfect.

“I’ve been thinking,” Diane says, already reaching for the serving dish nearest her, “that we should plan a proper summer gathering. Maybe the lake house? The twins would love the water, and it’s been too long since we’ve all been together properly.”

There’s a general murmur of agreement, not enthusiastic or particularly invested, just the sound of people following a conversational lead, and I nod with a small insincere smile.

Two more hours. I can do two more hours.

Henry turns to me, “Daniel mentioned you’ve been working a lot,” Henry says, his voice quiet enough that only I can hear it over the general noise. “At the bookshop. How’s that going?”

“It’s good,” I say. “Busy. But I like it. It’s...it’s mine, you know?”

He nods, understanding immediately. “Everyone needs something that’s just theirs,” he says simply. “Especially with small children. It’s important.”

The conversation continues like this, easy, unpressured, actual human connection, until Diane appears at Henry’s elbow with the energy of someone who’s just remembered an important scheduling conflict.