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  He swiped at his face. “Why doesn’t Grandma like my mom?”

  “I don’t know. Because your mom isn’t like Auntie Jill, I guess.” I put an arm around him, squeezing.

  “You’re not like Auntie Jill.”

  I laughed, painfully. “No, but I’d say that Grandma doesn’t like me much, either.”

  “No, but she loves you, at least.” That was a lot of wisdom from a kid.

  “Yeah...well. She loves you, too, buddy. So does your mom. So don’t let this ruin your time. When we go back in there, it’ll all have blown over, and everyone will be pretending nothing’s wrong.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s what people do when something awkward happens,” I told him as the service door opened and my brother shot through it.

  He looked at us with relief. “Oh. Hey, buddy. There you are.”

  William gave his dad a wary look. “Are they still fighting?”

  “No. Mom went to cool down, and Grandma and Aunt Jill are...sitting down. Being quiet,” he said with a look at me.

  “Well, better they shut up because they feel so affronted than keep on going,” I said.

  Evan sighed. “C’mon back inside, buddy. Okay? Elise, you coming?”

  “In a minute.”

  My phone had buzzed while this was going on with a text from Niall saying he’d be right down to brunch. I tried to reply with at least a bare sketch of what had happened in case he was going to walk into a shitshow, but my signal bars had dropped. I moved along the corridor past stacked chairs and trays of glassware until I turned a corner, then down another corridor and through a set of double doors, where my phone got better reception. That was where everything really hit the fan.

  There was Susan, shoulders shaking as she pressed herself against a man I recognized from being at the party the night before, but whose name I did not know. He was stroking her hair while she said, “...and he just stood there and let them fucking walk all over him, and me, while his mother insulted me and my family. And he did nothing! Not a damn thing, as usual!”

  The guy wasn’t her brother or an uncle or a conveniently affectionate male cousin, either. He might’ve been a gay best friend, but when they started kissing on the mouth, even I couldn’t make that one fly. All I could do was stand there with my mouth open, phone in my hand bleating with an incoming text message that alerted the lovers to my presence so they both turned at the same time, and I could not pretend I hadn’t seen them.

  “Shit,” the man said.

  Susan looked remarkably put together considering how short a time had passed since she’d been screeching like a harpy. And considering her dirty secret had just been found out. She lifted her chin and murmured something to the guy that seemed to put him off, but she repeated it, harder this time. He nodded and moved past her, heading toward the swinging doors that led to the lobby. She looked at me.

  “Are you going to tell Evan?”

  I didn’t know what to say, other than “He’s my brother.”

  “Well, don’t tell him today. Okay? Let’s not make this day any worse than it’s been already.” She looked tired. And sad.

  I shook my head. “You should be the one to tell him, not me.”

  Susan laughed without humor. “I’m not telling him anything. Are you crazy?”

  “You can’t... I mean, he’ll find out.” My phone slipped in my sweaty palm.

  “How’s he going to find out? He doesn’t fucking pay attention.” Susan sneered. “To anything. You really think he’s going to just figure it out on his own? And even if he does, Elise, your brother is a fucking master at ignoring things he doesn’t want to deal with.”

  She wasn’t wrong, but he was still my brother, and she was a woman who’d never bothered to even try to be my friend. I didn’t say anything. She shrugged and eyed me.

  “What did I ever do to you,” I asked finally, “to make you hate me?”

  Susan answered quietly. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Then what the hell, Sue?” I leaned against the wall.

  “It was everything,” she blurted. “Everything about you.”

  I frowned, not sure how to take that. “What about me is so awful? I mean, I get why you can’t stand Jill, but...”

  “Jill’s jealous of me, that’s all,” Susan said. “She’s jealous because she can’t have kids because of the...because of what happened when she was in college. And she’s always been jealous of you and Evan.”

  “What the hell happened to her in college?”

  Susan gave me a long, steady look. “She got pregnant. The guy wouldn’t marry her, the way Evan agreed to marry me.”

  “Jill got pregnant?” I shook my head and wished I had a chair to sit in.

  “Yeah, and she’s never gotten over the guy or gotten married or had kids, and she hates that I have what she wanted.” Susan shrugged and crossed her arms over her stomach. She looked at the carpet. “I’ve tried to feel sorry for her, but really, she’s just a bitch.”

  “Well. Yeah.” I shrugged, too. “She kind of always was.”

  Susan gave me a sideways look. “I’m jealous of you, Elise. So that makes me a bitch, too, I guess.”

  “But...why?”

  “Because Evan talks to you when he won’t talk to me. Because you stand up to them, and I just let them walk all over me. Because,” she said on a low rasp, “when William was a baby and I felt trapped into having him and getting married when I didn’t want to, there you were. I was afraid to drop him. You changed his diapers with practically one hand. And here you are now, with a job you love and you’re just...so fucking put together and confident, and you always have been, and I never have.”

  We stared at each other.

  “Jesus, I wish I still smoked,” she said.

  I would gladly have lit up right along with her. “I won’t tell Evan anything, for William’s sake. But you should. Or you should end it. Or both.”

  “I can’t end it,” Susan said. “I love him.”

  I winced. We stared at each other some more. Finally, she squared her shoulders.

  “I need to get back in there and, I guess, make nice.”

  “You don’t really have to make that much nice. They’re going to leave you alone. Oh, they’ll snipe at each other and probably wear off Evan’s ears later, but you...” I gave her a grin that hurt my mouth and a shrug. “You, they’re going to leave alone.”

  For a moment, I thought she was going to break down into tears again. I couldn’t in any way not judge her for cheating on my brother—what the fuck was I going to do about that anyway? Still, I didn’t blame her for finally laying into my mom and Jill.

  “Look, Susan...” I paused, thinking of her Wednesday afternoon yoga classes, and being late. “I’m not going to put any sort of ultimatums on you or anything like that. But if you ever again use me to be responsible for your kid while you’re off fucking around, I will make sure Evan knows everything.”

  She looked guilty, I gave her that. She nodded. My phone buzzed, and I looked at it. Without another word between us, she left me, and I thumbed the screen to find a text from Niall.

  Where are you?

  I told him where to find me, and when he got there, I hugged him, hard. Squeezing. I pressed my face to the side of his neck, and said, “Get me out of here.”

  * * *

  Niall took me to a diner and fed me eggs and pancakes and toast and coffee, and he listened to me rant about my stupid, crazy family without trying to offer any advice. I didn’t tell him about Susan—some knowledge is more of a burden than ignorance would be, and he worked with my brother, after all. When he reached for my hand across the table, I let him take it. A simple touch, but it meant a lot.

  “Want some?” I offered a piece of toast that I’d sprinkled liberally with cinnamon and sugar. I bit into it, crunching, savoring the sweetness. I sighed. “My favorite.”

  “I’ve never had it.”

  Surprised,