“Snap of out it,” hissed Brad.
I turned my head slowly to look at him. “Shall I tell your parents at dinner?” I whispered back.
His face went white. “We agreed to wait.” Yes, he’d sent me a text from the guest room this morning, saying it would be for the best if we didn’t tell our son today and ruin graduation. Too bad I hadn’t been given the same consideration. “But fix your face before someone says something.”
“Shut your mouth, Brad,” I hissed.
My dad gave me a weird look, but he was deaf in the ear closest to me and had missed it. Probably.
After the ceremony, someone—Diana, maybe, whose daughter, Jamie, had been Dylan’s friend since third grade—took a picture of the three of us; the three of us with the Fairchilds (our last picture together? Ever?); the three of us with the Moms; the three of us with Dad, who’d refused to have a photo with Mom for the past thirty years. The three of us with Hannah. The three of us. The three of us. The three of us.
That was dead now.
Did I smile? Did I cry? Could anyone hear me screaming, or was that just inside my head?
Thank God Diana asked me to return the favor of taking photos, so I smiled and said, “Okay, everyone, one, two, three!” seven or eight times.
“This is a big day for you, too, sweetheart,” Vanessa said, putting her arm around me. “What a wonderful mother you are.”
“Absolutely,” Brad’s father, Charles, added. “Now, don’t be sad. He’ll always be your son.” Brad, like Dylan, was an only child.
What would my in-laws say if they knew? Would they think less of me? Had they sensed this was coming? Would my sister roll her eyes? Would Beatrice tell me it was because I wasn’t thin enough and I should eat more like a Frenchwoman? Would my mother say she’d always assumed we’d get a divorce?
My dad . . . he would kill Brad. That was a comforting thought.
“Hi, Mrs. Fairchild!” called Hayley, one of my favorites of Dylan’s friends.
“Hello, honey,” I said sweetly. I had never officially changed my name, but kids didn’t care about stuff like that. I’d always answered to it. Until now. “It’s actually Ms. Silva, but you can call me Lillie, now that you’re a high school graduate.”
She smiled and said, “Okay, Lillie!”
“Have fun in Boston, sweetheart,” I said, because I knew she’d be going to school there.
“Mrs. Fairchild,” said another girl. Cammie, that was her name. “I’m going to Endicott for a nursing degree. Maybe I could intern with you one summer?”
“Of course,” I said. “Call me anytime.”
I congratulated the dozens of kids I knew . . . kids Dylan had known since he was eighteen months old and we’d started going to story hour at our library. Boys who’d played football with him. Kids who’d slept at our house, who’d come to Halloween and cookie baking parties, kids whose houses he’d slept at. Kids who’d eaten in my kitchen, who’d sat in my back seat on drives home, kids I’d cheered on at games and meets and plays. They were all leaving for college or the military or vocational programs. Maybe a few would stay home and find jobs in landscaping or food service or fishing or some other local business, but here in the painfully bright afternoon, it seemed like every child I’d ever known was leaving, and the world was crumbling under my feet.
The longer we were at the graduation, the more unreal it felt. Brad couldn’t . . . he wasn’t . . . leaving me, right? Not when we were standing together with other families, other parents. An affair. An affair! But why? Why would he risk our life together? It was such a good life.
For the last time as parents of a student, we left Nauset Regional High School and headed back to Wellfleet for dinner at Winslow’s. I rode with my father. We were silent on the short trip, but that was fairly normal for us. “He’s a good kid,” my father said eventually. Dad was a man of few words.
“Yes.”
“Montana.”
“I know.”
We got to the restaurant, Dylan practically drowning in senior citizens—his four grandparents plus step-grandmother; my sister, who was forty-five but acted like she was eighty . . . the kind of woman who made tea in a teapot every day and poured it into a matching cup with saucer as her well-behaved cat looked on fondly. And me, flanked by Dylan on one side, my dad on the other. Dylan was all smiles, giving each grandparent some special attention, a hug, a word. The price of being an only child, all these elders focused on just him, but something Dylan had always carried with grace and kindness.
He would’ve been such a great brother. A different and very familiar pain, one sharper and more pure, slid through my heart.
“It seems like yesterday that you brought him home from the hospital,” said Vanessa, reaching across the table to squeeze my hand.
My eyes filled with tears. I had always loved Vanessa, and she me. That phrase—the daughter I never had—she meant it. Mom was telling the waitress that the tab should come to her, not anyone else, and Charles was fighting her on it with good humor. Let them. I appreciated it. They were wealthy, after all, and Brad and I were just okay. We could have paid for dinner, but the Moms and the Fairchilds were rich.
Women who get divorced usually suffer financially. That was a known fact.
“Lillie?” asked the waitress. I’d delivered her twins a few years ago.
I switched into midwife role. “Hey, Emma, how are you? How are the babies?”
“Doing great and getting big. Congratulations on Dylan.” She smiled. “What would you like to drink?”
“Um . . . a vodka martini. Straight up.” It was a lot stronger than what I usually drank. So be it.
The drinks came out quickly, and Charles made a toast to Dylan.
The entire time, there was a narrator in my head. This is the last family dinner you’ll ever have. You may never see Vanessa and Charles again. Brad is screwing someone else. Who, by the way? Who, damn it?
“Son,” Brad said, standing up. “I’d like to say a few words, too.” He waited till everyone quieted. “Dylan, I’m so excited for you as you take this new path on your journey. Life is a journey, and it’s up to you to make every single footstep meaningful and important and filled with joy.”
Oh, that word again! I drowned out my hiss with a slug of vodka. Hopefully, Brad would also move far, far away. Maybe Dylan would change his mind about Montana if he knew his father was leaving his mother. But no, I wasn’t supposed to want that kind of thing. I didn’t want it, even though, sure, I wanted it.
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.