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I know why he isn’t. I told him to go. I still think it was the right thing. That doesn’t make this fair. It doesn’t make me less pissed at the whole situation. And then I just start spiraling into anger about everything, the old shit I swore didn't actually bother me. He was a coward, for leaving me, for not fighting for me when he found out I was pregnant, being such a piece of shit that I had to talk him into being there for the outcome of his years being a whore. Of course he didn't want to go. The only thing Simon know how to do is run when things get real.
The thought makes me feel sick as soon as I finish it.
Being angry at the situation is allowed. Turning him back into the worst version of himself because I'm angry at something no one saw coming isn't.
Dad opens the door before we even touch the handle. Theo wriggles past me, casserole first.
“Papa!”
“There’s my guy.” Dad takes dish with one hand and helps Theo out of his jacket with the other, the same one-two he’s been doing since Theo could walk. Then he looks past him, at the empty space where Simon should be, and his face does that careful thing. “Where’s Simon?”
“He had some family emergency to handle. He’ll be here later.”
Dad nods, but doesn’t look convinced.
Inside, the house is already too loud. Leo shoots through the hallway with a foam sword. Anthony is right behind him, screaming something that might be a battle cry. The twins are on the living room rug in matching turkey-print dresses, one of them crying, one of them eating a roll she should not have. Adam is under the coffee table. Jackson is a tiny noise in a carrier on the kitchen island. It smells like turkey and cinnamon and too many people.
“Blaire!” Mom comes out of the kitchen wiping her hands, already smiling, already looking behind me. The smile stutters. “Where’s Simon?”
“Family emergency. He’s coming later.”
“Is it his mom?”
The concern on her face is real. Of course it is. In her head, family emergency plus Simon still maps to the woman who worked doubles and missed parent teacher conferences and never quite knew what to do with a boy who needed more from his mother than groceries on the table.
“No,” I say. “Not his mom.”
She waits. I don’t give her more. After a second she kisses my cheek and takes the casserole, peeling back a corner of foil.
“Theo did the onions,” I say, because if I don’t change the subject I am going to start talking and I cannot start talking.
Mom’s mouth twitches. “I can see that.”
“It’s perfect,” Theo announces, already gone, already swallowed by cousins.
Chance appears from the kitchen with a beer and stops when he sees it’s just me. Our eyes meet. He doesn’t ask where Simon is. He just says, “Hey,” and then, quieter, “You good?”
“I’m here.”
He accepts that the way only a brother can, which is to say he does not accept it at all, he just files it. Sophia waves from the stove, Jackson against her chest, and I go to her because a baby is a safer thing to look at than Chance’s face.
“He spit up on three outfits already,” she says. “Fair warning.”
“Noted.”
Brittney is at the dining table wrangling Addie into a chair. Ellie is in her lap. No Mason. I knew he wasn’t coming—tour dates, the same excuse as last Easter, the same one as Carter’s birthday—but seeing her here without him still makes my heart ache for her.
She’s smiling. She’s always smiling when the girls can see her. When she looks up at me the smile holds, then thins.
“Simon?” she asks.
“Later.”
“Okay.” She says it like she believes me and also like she doesn’t, which is the exact tone of a woman whose husband put a stage above a holiday. I squeeze her shoulder. She leans into it for half a second, then Addie dumps cranberry sauce on the tablecloth and the moment is over.
Carter and Alex are on the back deck even though it’s cold, standing too close, coffee cups steaming. Carter lifts his chin at me through the glass. I lift mine back. Alex says something that makes him laugh. At least someone in this family is having an easy morning.
I end up in the kitchen just to keep myself busy and not think about what Simon is doing. Mom puts me on rolls. Dad is carving in the dining room, talking to Chance about the Lions like the Lions have ever done anything but disappoint us. Kids ricochet. Theo’s laugh cuts through from the living room, the same belly laugh from last night.
