Seventy-Two
Shiloh sent an email to her divorce attorney, and on Monday morning, she got an email back:
“Ryan doesn’t want to amend the overnight agreement.”
“Why not?” Shiloh replied.
“He doesn’t have to say why not. You can try to talk to him. But as it stands, no overnight guests unless you’re engaged.
(I think this was something you wanted originally, Shiloh.)”
Shiloh wanted to wear her diamond ring, but she really didn’t want to have to explain the ring to Junie. She would explain it all—in stages—after Cary left, and in the meantime, she hoped,
they could continue enjoying Junie’s customary enthusiasm and goodwill.
Cary wanted to wait to tell his mom about their engagement until after he’d sold her house. He didn’t want his sisters to
know and make things complicated. Shiloh wondered if his sisters would be invited to the wedding. She wondered if she and
Cary would even have a wedding. There hadn’t been a good time to talk about it yet.
He’d taken her metal fan with him when he left Saturday morning. (It took him fifteen minutes to get her bedroom window closed.)
He came back that night with a plastic fan and a few changes of clothes, which were still folded in a neat stack on top of
Shiloh’s dresser.
The kids were home Monday night, and Cary came over for dinner. After Shiloh put the kids to bed, she sat on the porch with
him and made out for two hours. Shiloh got nine mosquito bites. Cary got a bruise in the shape of her teeth. (It wasn’t even
sexual when she did it. She just wanted to bite him.)
“What the actual fuck is going on with you and Cary?” her mom asked Shiloh as soon as she had the chance. It was Tuesday morning, in the kitchen, while the kids were in the next room eating scrambled eggs.
“I don’t know,” Shiloh whispered. “I don’t know the actual fuck.” She was washing a few dishes.
Her mom leaned on the counter next to the sink with her arms folded. “Are you sleeping with him platonically ?”
“No.” Shiloh pulled the ring out of her neckline and grimaced. “ No. ”
Her mom’s eyes got huge. She took hold of the ring and bent close. “Holy shit.”
“I know .” Shiloh shrugged her hands. “I don’t know. It was sudden.” She was getting dishwater all over the front of her dress.
“I wouldn’t call it sudden... ” her mom said. She was still squinting at the ring. “How’s this gonna work?”
“Not easily. I don’t want the kids to know yet. Or Ryan.”
Her mom nodded. “It’s a pretty ring.”
“Yeah...”
She let go of the ring and looked up at Shiloh. “Are you happy about this?”
Shiloh nodded again. She put her own hand over the ring. “In the moments when it feels real, I’m really happy.”
Her mom smiled a little. “It won’t be easy with anyone—it may as well be ‘not easy’ with someone you love.”
“I love Cary.”
“You always have, Shiloh.”
Shiloh finally told Tom.
He responded by standing up and putting one foot on his office chair and one hand over his heart, and singing the chorus from
“Carrie” by Europe.
“Caaa-arr-rie, Caaa-arr-rie, things they change, my friend.”