I set my untouched drink down with a clink and glared at her. “He has social anxiety. You expect him to come to some loud-ass limo party with your verbal-diarrhea husbands, and you wonder why he didn’t suddenly turn into some social butterfly? He should get credit for even trying. You have no idea how hard he has to work to just fucking show up. And he does it because that’s what love does—it shows up. He’s shown up for Amy and his brother since the second this started. He has been a goddamn saint through all of this. He is not the asshole. You’re the asshole.”
Jafar squawked, “ASSHOLE!” from somewhere under the kitchen table.
Every mouth in the room was open. Amy was wide-eyed, Jane was red, Jill was nodding, Jewel looked like I had her vote for president, and Joy was stifling a grin.
I stared down Shannon until she looked away first. Then I pulled the keys out of my purse, got up, and left.
I drove to the gas station down the street, bought seven different kinds of candy bars, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. Then I drove back to the house, snuck in through the garage door, and went straight for the sunroom, where Grandpa watched TV.
“What the hell do you want?” he muttered when I came in.
“Give me any crap and I’ll change my mind.”
I wheeled him out the sliding glass doors and into the screened-in gazebo in the wooded part of the yard.
I took off his oxygen, moved his tank, opened the pack of cigarettes, and held one out in front of him just out of reach.
“I know you’re of sound mind, so I know you understand when I say that if you choose to take this, it may worsen your lung condition. You would be smoking against my medical advice and probably to your detriment.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Shut up and give it to me.”
I rolled my eyes, lit the cigarette, and handed it to him. Then I dropped into a chair and started eating a Snickers like it was a burrito.
The old man eyed me. “Tough night?”
“You have no idea.”
He took a long draw on his cigarette and blew the smoke in rings. “You having trouble with my grandson? Want me to straighten him out?”
I snorted. “Can you make him love me?”
“Doesn’t he already?”
“No,” I said. “No, he doesn’t.”
He took another puff. “And here I was thinkin’ he was the smart one.”
He finished his cigarette and I gave him another one. I opened a Milky Way and sat there eating it while I stared through the screen into the dark abyss of the yard, contemplating all my questionable life choices.
Jacob never said he loved me back.
I said it to him so many times and not once did he say “You too.” But he did let me know he thinks of me when he jerks off. I’d be absolutely thrilled about this if he also happened to be in love with me as well.
If I had any question about what this was for him, that was my answer.
I had to bury my face in my hands.
This was my fault. All of it.
He’d been crystal clear with me since the beginning, that he was in love with someone else. This was completely on me.
Maybe if I hadn’t gone off and told Amy that Jacob and I were living together, I wouldn’t have moved in there and wouldn’t be so worn down from seeing him in gray sweatpants every day.
Maybe if I’d tried to calm him down in a way that didn’t involve straddling his lap, I would have had the fortitude not to have sex with him on a futon in his mom’s basement.
I groaned. I had sex with him. On a futon. In his mom’s basement.
I was like a parody of myself.
Even though this was just sex for him, now that I wasn’t going to be doing it again, he was going to feel rejected and like he did something wrong, because that’s just how Jacob was. And I was going to feel embarrassed and like I couldn’t count on myself to make the right decisions, especially when it came to him. The only way I could be sure it wouldn’t happen again was to stay away from him.
I’d still keep my promise. I’d attend his family functions through the wedding. But I couldn’t ever be with him alone and I couldn’t spend time with him outside of the agreement.
I’d messed this up. I’d ruined the time we had left.
I still had my face in my hands when I heard footsteps. A second later someone opened the gazebo door. I looked up. Amy stood there.
We stared at each other in surprise. Then she looked over at Grandpa smoking and her mouth fell open.
My jaw set. Fuck it. “Go ahead,” I said, sitting back in my seat. “Tell Joy. I don’t even care.”
Amy blinked at me. Then she held something up. A pack of Marlboros.
“We all give them to him,” she said sheepishly. “Well, the girls do. It’s sort of how you know you’re in the family? When you start sneaking Grandpa cigarettes. He smokes a pack a week.”
“Two,” he said proudly.
I turned and gawked at him. “What?”
He didn’t reply, but he looked pleased with himself.
I looked back at Amy. “How does Joy not know?”
Amy shrugged. “She does. She told Greg as long as she’s not enabling it, she can’t feel guilty about it. And she said he likes the chase? That it keeps him sharp?”
Grandpa looked at the glowing end of his cigarette. “I always could make the ladies do whatever I wanted. Haven’t lost my touch.”
I shook my head at him. Unbelievable. “You almost ran me down with your wheelchair. Several times.”
“You got out of the way, didn’t you?”
He managed to get a laugh out of me.
Amy stood there for a minute, looking self-conscious. “Can I sit?”
I blew a breath out through my nose. Then I nodded at the chair across from me. She sat down on the edge of the seat like I might change my mind and make her leave.
She licked her lips. “I’m sorry about Shannon,” she said. “She was out of line. She was very drunk, and I sent her home.”
I didn’t reply.
“Jacob never strung me along,” she said, going on. “He didn’t do anything wrong. And you were right. I never really appreciated how hard it is for him to show up—I didn’t do enough to take his anxiety seriously. I deserved what you said. Probably more than anyone.”
She peered back at me.
I looked away from her. “Do you want a Twix?” I mumbled.
“Oh God, yes.”
I dug into the plastic gas-station bag and handed her the candy bar, and she unwrapped it and took a bite. She closed her eyes while she chewed. “Thank you,” she breathed. “I am starving, all the time.”
I studied her for a moment. “How many weeks are you?” I asked.
“Eight.” She took a deep breath and glanced at me. “Honestly, I’ve been so sick and exhausted I didn’t even want to do this party.”
“Is that why we made candles instead of pole dancing somewhere?”
She laughed a little. “The candles came out pretty awful, didn’t they?”
“Mine has a hair in it.”
She cracked up and I couldn’t help but smile. She finished the candy bar and rested her head on the back of her chair.
I lit another cigarette for Grandpa. “Don’t you need to go back in?” I asked her.