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A little while later, I walked into my house with that incredible feeling of lightness that comes from knowing you have five days of vacation ahead of you—and will be seeing your new boyfriend as often as possible during those five days—and found Lorena and Grandma sitting and chatting in the kitchen.
Lorena was a good listener and Grandma loved talking, so they had always gotten along well, but I think the last couple of weeks, when they’d spent a lot of time alone together in the house, had turned them into real friends.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, joining them at the table.
Grandma said, “Your mom and Luke took Jacob to an appointment with that doctor she wanted him to see.”
“The developmental pediatrician? I thought they couldn’t get an appointment for like two more months.”
“The office called this morning—there was a sudden cancellation.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And Luke Weston’s kid just happened to jump to the top of the waiting list?”
“We don’t know that,” Grandma said primly.
“I’m just glad for Mom’s sake.”
They walked in a little while later. Luke was carrying Jacob, and Mom was close behind them. Lorena was instantly on her feet; she held her arms out for Jacob and whisked him off.
Mom said, “Who wants to make me a cup of tea?” as she sank down on a chair.
“I will,” said Grandma, getting up. “You relax and tell us what happened at the appointment.”
Luke said, “I should go work out. I had to cancel with my trainer today.”
“Not yet,” Mom said, and patted the chair next to her. “Let’s all talk about this for a second.”
He sat down and reached for her hand. I breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of their clasped fingers—whatever they’d heard hadn’t driven them further apart. “What did the doctor say?”
They looked at each other and then Mom said slowly, “She does think Jacob falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. But she also thinks he’s incredibly bright and that he can learn pretty much anything we want him to, with just a little bit of work.”
“Okay,” I said. I felt like I should have a bigger reaction to the news, but we’d been inching toward that possibility for so long that I guess deep down I’d already kind of accepted it. “It makes sense, right? What do you think, Luke?”
“You’ll be happy to know I listened quietly to the doctor.”
“Because you promised me?”
He nodded. “But also because you were right. It was time for me to shut up and listen. Plus I really liked her.”
I beamed at him. I felt like a proud parent. “And?”
“I told her I still don’t like the idea of labeling a two-year-old, and she said she completely understood and that the label didn’t matter anyway—the important thing was just to recognize that Jacob’s a little behind other kids his age and we need to help him catch up. Which I’m fine with.”
“Me too,” Mom said.
“Whatever it takes.” He brought Mom’s hand to his mouth for a swift kiss. “Can I go now?”
“You may go,” she said. “And thank you,” she whispered to me as he left the kitchen. “I don’t know what you said to him, but it made all the difference.”
“I have awesome powers of persuasion.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Speaking of which . . . can I persuade you to let me stay out past one tonight? I’ll just be at George’s. You know you can trust us.”
“Curfew’s midnight,” she said. “Same as always.” Grandma put a cup of tea in front of her and Mom nodded her thanks while Grandma sat down with her own cup.
“I know,” I said. “But I’m on vacation. And you should be proud of me for not sneaking home later than curfew without permission even though you’re usually asleep and don’t even notice what time I get home. I’m always honest with you. Which is why you can trust me. And it’s not like I want to go drinking or anything. I just want to hang out in George’s apartment and watch movies with him, and it’s so much nicer not to have to rush home early.”
“That’s all?” she said. “You’re just going to watch movies?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I used to tell my mother that, too,” she said, and the two of them looked at each other and laughed a little too loudly.
“Don’t worry,” Grandma said to her. “I already had the condom talk with her.”
“And I endured it without complaining,” I said. “For that alone I should get one night without a curfew.”
Mom laughed some more and gave in.
thirty-six
Crystal took the baby (and Megan, who never seemed to get any holiday off) back to her parents’ house in Boston for Thanksgiving, so Mom invited Michael and Aaron to have di
We ate in the dining room, which we saved for big formal di
“I’m over all the drama,” he told me right after he had stuck green beans in the corners of his mouth and pretended to be a walrus to amuse Jacob, who just stared at him, then looked away again, unimpressed. Aaron tossed the beans back onto his plate. “I’m avoiding it in the future.”
“Make it your New Year’s resolution,” I suggested.
“That’ll be one of them,” he said. “Sticking close to good friends I can trust—that’s another.”
I fluttered my hands to my chest in an exaggerated You mean me? kind of way and he gri
The plates had all been cleared when George and Jonathan arrived—they’d had di
I watched from a distance as Luke got up to shake George’s hand and Mom reached up to give him a hug and a kiss, and I felt as lucky as people were always telling me I was.
Jonathan circled around the table and reached me first. He leaned over to give me a kiss and whispered in my ear, “I want you to know I don’t approve of this at all. You’re way too good for him.” He cuffed me on the shoulder and nodded in Aaron’s direction. “Hello,” he said coldly. Apparently (and probably not coincidentally) he shared his brother’s dislike of Aaron.
Jacob stretched up his arms and Jonathan scooped him up. “All right then,” he said, and carried Jacob over to the adults’ end of the table, where he sat down next to Luke, arranging Jacob comfortably on his lap.
George said hello to all the adults before coming to our end of the table, so he reached us a minute after his brother.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said, and rested his hand on the back of Jacob’s former seat. “Mind if I sit here?”
“Do you really want to know or are you just being polite?” Aaron asked.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” George said, and sat. I nodded a greeting at him but didn’t indicate in any other way that for the previous couple of days we’d basically spent every hour we could alone in his room, twisted around each other. I got home at four in the morning on Tuesday night—or, rather, Wednesday morning—but last night I had to be back at midnight. Mom wanted me up at a normal hour to help her get the house ready for guests.
I hadn’t told Aaron about me and George yet. This was the first time I’d seen Aaron since things had changed, and it seemed awkward to just bring it up out of context. And why should I rush to tell him about my private romantic life when he’d kept his a secret from me? It felt good to turn the tables, to have information he didn’t. I mean, if he’d asked me specifically about either George or my love life, I might have said something, but Aaron didn’t ask people questions about themselves. He liked the conversation to be about him.