Dylan caught my eye and smiled, his eyebrow raising just a little.
“Mom?” Dylan asked.
“Yes, honey?”
“Do you want to say anything?”
I hadn’t planned on it, but I stood up anyway. “Dylan . . .” My eyes flooded. “I have no advice to give you, sweetheart. You’re already a kind and responsible young man, funny and hardworking. I’m so proud of you. I love you more than anything, and I’ll . . . I’m so excited for you, baby.”
His eyes filled with tears, too. He stood up, all six foot three of him, and hugged me. I felt a little sob from him, and whispered, “It’s going to be great, honey. You’ll love it out there.”
It’s what we say, we mothers, even when our hearts are cracking.
There were enough people there, enough noise （thanks to Beatrice and my mother, who always had to show the world what a fun and gorgeous couple they were through stories and loud laughter）。 Hannah told a tale about one of her grotesque weddings—she was an event planner for extremely wealthy people, and her last wedding had apparently required an elephant. It was probably an interesting story, but I couldn’t tell. Charles started talking about his own college days, when men weren’t allowed into women’s dorms, and how he’d serenaded Vanessa under her sorority house window.
“Maybe you’ll be like us, son,” he said to Dylan. “Meet your future wife in college. Your parents did the same thing, so it runs in the family!”
Brad said nothing. I ate a piece of bread to soak up some of the vodka. Beatrice began talking about her first and second husbands, and no one noticed my weirdness.
“You’ll be fine,” Vanessa said, reaching over to squeeze my hand, and I jumped. Did she know? “Once you know he’s settled in, you’ll be just fine.”
Ah. She was talking about Dylan. I wanted to fall into her arms and sob. Unlike my own mother, Vanessa noticed me. She had loved me from the moment I walked through her door on Beacon Hill, was thrilled when I got knocked up, adored her only grandson and praised me for raising him so well.
We talked at least twice a week, had lunch often, cooked together during the holidays. Once or twice, she’d treated me to a spa weekend with her in Vermont. She was so proud of me and loved hearing stories of labor and delivery. My own mother couldn’t listen to me talk about work for more than a minute before saying I should have gone to medical school and become a doctor. Mom treated Dylan like a delightful puppy, then grew bored after half an hour.
Vanessa wouldn’t be my mother-in-law anymore. I was about to lose half of the family I had now. My vision grayed.
Dylan was the first to finish dinner. The rest of his night would be spent at Project Graduation, where they locked the kids in the school gym for the night so they wouldn’t drink or do drugs or have sex. There would be pizza and music, movies, all that. He thanked us all, kissed his elders like the kindhearted boy he was. Brad said “Have a great time!” in an overly jocular tone, ignoring the fact that he would soon destroy his son’s family, home life, holidays. Things would never be the same because Brad wanted joy.
I got up and hugged my boy. “Have a great time, honey,” I said. “I love you.” He hugged me tighter for a second, then left, taking my heart with him.
I sat back down and looked at Brad. He smiled at me, and I scratched my nose with my middle finger. The smile on his face was immediately replaced with a sulk. Good.
Brad and I didn’t speak on the way home from the restaurant. “I guess I’ll stay down in the guest room until I leave,” he said when we got home. “Unless you want me in the studio”—we’d converted my grandfather’s old toolshed into a tiny, perfect guest space about ten years ago—“but Dylan likes to hang out there with his friends.”
“When are we going to tell our son about your infidelity, by the way?” I asked.
Brad sat down on the couch and tilted his head in his shrink mode, his brows coming together. “Yes. About that. I’ve been thinking about what would be best for him.”
“Not cheating on his mother leaps to mind.”
“I think we should let him have these last few weeks be as normal as possible,” Brad said. “Once he’s settled at college, we can FaceTime him and say we’ve grown apart. He’ll understand. It’s already happened with half his friends.”
“Brad . . .” My voice broke, and the fury wobbled for a moment as all the good times Brad and I had had flashed through my mind. Dating. Our honeymoon in the Maldives, a gift from his parents, me newly pregnant, him smitten. The way he’d cried when Dylan was born. The joyful and fun toddler years, rebuilding this house inch by inch. We’d laughed together, cooked together, always held hands when we walked, locked eyes in mutual love and pride for our son.