“Oh. Yeah.” She rinsed a plate and stuck it in the dish drainer. I picked up a towel and a clean coffee cup and started drying. “The last time we did a family gathering here was about five years ago. My brothers used to share a room back then, but since they both got married . . . obviously they each needed a room now. We figured Mitch wouldn’t mind.” Concern clouded her face. “He doesn’t, does he?”
“No,” I said carefully. “I don’t think so. He just didn’t know.” I stacked the coffee cups as I dried them since I didn’t know where anything went. Cups done, I started on the plates.
“It was nothing personal. Besides . . .” Lulu scrubbed at a casserole dish. “He mentioned you’re a single mom. I thought you might like a little weekend getaway, you know?” She glanced over at me with a sly smile, and I remembered the rose petals on the bed. There was nothing nefarious about this. She genuinely thought she was giving us a romantic weekend away.
“You’re not wrong,” I said. That was a lie, of course. Everything about it was wrong. But it didn’t bother me nearly as much this morning as it had the day before. I went back to the more important topic. “He told you about me, huh?”
“Oh, yeah!” She pulled the plug in the sink, sending the sudsy water down the drain, and rinsed her hands off before putting away the dishes I’d dried. “I mean, you probably don’t need me telling you this, but he really seems into you.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. He was doing a great job of selling this whole thing, so I needed to do the same. I handed her the last of the coffee cups and hung up the towel while she wiped down the counters. Done.
“Come on,” she said. “I think the football’s about to start.”
“The what?” But I followed her out the side door that led off the kitchen to a back deck about twice the size of mine. Roughly half of the adults sat in small groups on the deck, while out in the yard a gaggle of children of all ages and a handful of adults had started to organize into teams. Mitch was out there, and as I watched he picked up one of the smaller children and lifted him over his head, as though the child were a football he was about to throw down the field. The child in the air burst into screaming giggles, but Mitch’s grip was solid, and when he put the child down, three more insisted they go next.
“He’s popular,” I murmured to myself. Lulu had gone over to the other side of the deck, where Mitch’s grandfather, with the help of a couple older men—one of whom I was pretty sure was Mitch’s father, but I wouldn’t swear to it in court—had their heads together over a massive smoker. They were obviously still getting it going: smoke trickled out of the large cylindrical drum, but I couldn’t smell any barbecue yet. Which I was thankful for, since I was still full from breakfast.
“It takes them a while,” said a voice at my side, and I turned around quickly. Mitch’s mother: I remembered her from last night. She’d said hello to me, but otherwise had refrained from any real small talk. I’d decided she didn’t like me and had determined to steer clear the rest of the weekend. But now she followed my gaze to the men around the smoker, and when she turned back to me her smile was conspiratorial. “It’s new. Mitch’s grandfather got that thing for Christmas. I hope you like barbecue, because it’s about to be coming out our ears.”
“I love barbecue, so that’s good news for me.” I matched my smile to hers, and she gave me a slow perusal up and down, her smile still in place.
“But yes,” she said, turning back toward the yard. “Mitch is very popular with his little cousins. You know he’s an only child, right? So no nieces or nephews, but most of his cousins are married with children of their own. He’s everyone’s honorary uncle.”
I let myself chuckle as Mitch ran painfully slowly across the yard, while the four children ran screaming after him. “He really is great with kids.” Emily had told me many, many stories of Mitch with the kids at the Ren Faire, and it was nice to see this side of him while we were here with his family.
“He is. He’s going to be a wonderful father someday.”
“I’m sure he is.” But the nape of my neck prickled. This conversation was going somewhere, and I wasn’t sure I liked the direction of it.
Sure enough, when I turned back to Mrs. Malone her smile had turned to polite steel. “You have a daughter, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “Caitlin’s almost eighteen. About to graduate from high school.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She nodded absently, looking back into the yard. “Empty nester, then?”
A slice of cold slid down my back. There it was. She wasn’t even being subtle. Was it a dig at my age? Or the fact that my baby-making days were behind me? Contrasted with Mitch, who still had all the time in the world to become a dad.
The thought of Mitch being a father, holding his own child . . . it did something to my chest. I had Caitlin; I was done with that part of my life. But Mitch hadn’t experienced that yet. And maybe he’d want to.
He’d get his chance, I reminded myself. Not with me, of course, which was fine. This was all a charade, and we weren’t planning any kind of future past the end of this weekend. It was easy to forget, here in the midst of all this family togetherness, that I didn’t really belong here. Mrs. Malone had nothing to worry about; her hypothetical grandchildren remained a possibility.
Nine
I still hadn’t answered Mrs. Malone, and to be honest I wasn’t sure how to. Torn between “that’s none of your fucking business” and being that mature fake girlfriend—a little too mature if you asked Mrs. Malone—that Mitch needed me to be. “It hasn’t been easy,” I finally said. “Raising my daughter on my own. So yes, I’m looking forward to a little me time, you know?” My smile felt as weak as my attempt at a joke.
Before she could respond Lulu was back, two longneck bottles in her hand. “Hey, Aunt Patricia. Can I steal April back? The game’s about to start, and I need to teach her how to heckle the family properly.”
“Of course.” Mrs. Malone—I was never going to call her Patricia—laid a hand on my shoulder. “It was nice to talk to you, dear.”
Her nails felt like talons through my blouse, and I had to fight to not wince. I wasn’t going to let her win. “Absolutely.”
“Come on.” Lulu led me to an empty pair of Adirondack chairs. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize Aunt Patricia was going to swoop in on you that fast. I told Mitch I’d keep an eye on her.”
I sank into a chair, still feeling a little shaken. “She really doesn’t like me.”
“She doesn’t like anyone. I don’t think she’s ever liked any of the girls Mitch has dated. Always something wrong with all of them. Don’t hold it against him, okay?” She offered me one of the bottles. “Here you go. It’s noon somewhere, right?”
“Damn straight.” We clinked the necks of our bottles together and I settled back in the chair with my drink. I looked down, expecting a beer, but was pleasantly surprised to find a craft cider. I took a grateful swig. “Oh, that’s good.”