He read it out loud.
“Tomorrow at the party, watch me kiss you in front of everybody. She won’t do anything. She
never does. —R.“
And then the reply. From Michael.
“You’re insane. —M.“
And then Rachel.
“You love it. —R.“
Tom lowered the paper.
He turned around. He looked at me standing on the deck, with the fruit salad, with my whole body shaking.
“She never does,” he repeated quietly. “That’s what they think of you, Jenna. That you never do
anything.”
I don’t know how long I stood there.
I remember the fruit salad bowl finally slipping out of my hands. I remember the sound it made
when it hit the wooden deck. It didn’t break. It just bounced and rolled, and grapes and melon and strawberries spilled out everywhere, and a strawberry rolled all the way down the steps and into the grass.
I remember my mother saying, “Oh, Rachel.” Not angry. Just broken. Like something she’d been holding for thirty years had finally fallen out of her hands too.
I remember my father walking across the yard. My quiet father, who builds birdhouses and never
says anything. He walked straight to the swing set. He picked up Ben in one arm and held out his other hand to Sophie. Sophie took it. And my father walked my children around the side of the house, toward the driveway, away from all of it, without saying a word.
