“I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. It’s possible I’m really as insane as Luke keeps telling me I am. It’s just . . . she babysat twice and both times I felt like she couldn’t even bring herself to smile at him. That he was just like this difficulty she had to deal with to get paid. I don’t want Jacob to be with people who feel that way. So I don’t want to use her anymore. But I also don’t want to leave him with another stranger. So it’s been me all day for the last couple of days, with no breaks. Luke’s already left for the set today—it’s going to be a long, lonely day here for me.”
“I have a great idea: Grandma should fly out and help you. That would solve all our problems!”
She gave a weary laugh. “Nice try. She’s all yours. Luke has tomorrow off, and he said he’ll take Jacob and I should go get a massage.”
“You should get ten massages.”
“You deserve one, too,” she said. “Sending in your college application . . . that’s amazing.”
“Save the praise for when I get into college,” I said. “But I’ll take the massage. Can I schedule one with Margo?”
“Sure,” she said. “Enjoy yourself now because when we get home, you are going to be spending a lot of quality time with your little brother.”
It was almost midnight. I had given up on hearing from Aaron and was getting ready for bed when I finally got a text.
I need a place to crash. Can I come there?
Like for the night? What’s going on??
No response.
About fifteen minutes later, the monitor in the upstairs hallway buzzed, and I opened the front gate, then crept downstairs to let him in. I was glad Grandma was a sound sleeper and already in bed.
Aaron looked . . . weird. Disheveled and tense and not at all like his usual cheerful, polished self. Even while he bent down to kiss my cheek, his eyes were darting around nervously, and as he stood back up he kept thrusting his fingers through his hair and tugging hard at the ends. He was dressed in gray sweatpants, a T-shirt in a slightly different gray, and flip-flops. “Can I come in?” he asked, blinking rapidly. “And sleep here?”
“Yes and sure, but you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on.”
Aaron sat down heavily at the table, hunching his shoulders with his head thrust forward.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting across from him. “What’s going on?”
He looked at me. Then he looked away and ran his fingers through his hair again. “You guessed, right?” he said.
“Guessed what?”
“You know. What’s been going on . . .” He shifted in his chair. “At the Halloween party, I could tell you had guessed. I was going to just tell you everything that night—it would have been a relief to have someone to talk to—but then I got the sense you didn’t really want to hear about it and I got that. I mean, why would you?”
At the Halloween party? Wait—was this all about being in love with me? “I’m so confused,” I said.
“Crystal,” he said. “Me and Crystal.”
“Did she kick you out? Was it because you’re so messy?”
He stared at me like I was an idiot. “No,” he said. “Jesus, Ellie, really? You didn’t know? I thought . . . I mean, you saw us at that Starbucks. . . .”
“Oh, wait,” I said slowly. “Oh, Aaron. Oh my God. You and Crystal? As in . . . you and Crystal?”
He dropped his head into his hands.
“Oh my God.” I was stunned. “Oh my God.” Then, “But you hate her.”
“Yeah, no,” he said, raising his head again with the ghost of his usual grin. “Not so much.”
“You kept complaining,” I said. “About how she was driving you crazy and how she and your dad—” I stopped. “Your dad,” I said. Then, “Oh, Aaron.”
“Shh,” he said, even though I wasn’t talking anymore. “Don’t. It’s his fault. In a way.” He rose suddenly to his feet and started pacing around the table, his hands twitching at his sides. “I mean, he was totally ignoring her. She’s like the most amazing, beautiful woman in the entire world, and he was never home and even when he was, he barely talked to her. She came to me crying one night. I’d thought she was so . . .” He ran his fingers through his hair again, searching for the word. “You know. Cold. Cut off. Almost inhuman.” He shook his head vehemently. “But she’s not like that, I swear. She’d just been hurt. That’s why she seemed like that. She was trying to defend herself against how mean he could be. And it’s so hard with a baby. I felt so bad for her. I just wanted to help her not be lonely.”
“Sounds like you succeeded.”
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. “I guess.” He sank back into his chair and held his hands up in supplication. “You just have to know that she’s actually incredibly sensitive and caring and emotional. The way she seems—that’s just a mask.”
“Maybe.” I was skeptical. “But no matter what, she’s married to your father. That’s . . . weird.” It was a lot worse than weird, but I settled on the gentlest word I could think of.
“She’s closer to my age than to his, you know.”
“And that makes it okay?”
He said helplessly, “We were alone together so much. It wasn’t like we planned it. Things just happened.”
I could picture it: the beautiful young woman, bored and lonely and feeling like motherhood is draining her of her sex appeal, stuck at home with nothing to do because her famous husband is always at work or out schmoozing . . . and then along comes this incredibly handsome, dynamic stepson and the place is alive again and he makes her laugh and he’s there, and day after day they see each other and they eat dinner alone together and the baby’s off with the babysitter and she starts to look forward to their evenings together, when it’s just the two of them, and sometimes their hands touch when they’re passing food . . .
So much made sense now. Like that time I ran into them at Starbucks—they had probably snuck out to be alone together. No wonder she had acted so weird and couldn’t wait to get away: she was probably freaked out that I’d seen them, afraid I’d guess what was going on.