38. Graham
GRAHAM
Iknew it. I knew this was a bad idea.
Everyone at the party is staring at me—staring at me like I’m the one who made my mother cry.
And I guess I did.
I never should have let this party go on.
Of course my younger siblings wouldn’t know—wouldn’t know what kind of memories this anniversary party would bring up. They’ve only known my mom as this fun-loving, fast-talking cool mom who all their friends loved and wished were their own mom.
They don’t remember her when she was so depressed and despondent that she’d just lie on the floor, not moving.
If Grayson and Aaron had known about this party, they would have told me to kill it immediately with extreme prejudice.
“I have to go,” I tell a horrified Dani. “I’ll… I guess I’ll find you later.”
“Kid. Kid. Graham—”
Mom’s voice stops me.
“Sorry,” my mom says. “Sorry, I just…” She fans herself. “This was just… This was a surprise.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her automatically.
“No, no! This is a good surprise! This is great. I’m smiling!” She’s crying.
The guests are tense. Her parents crowd between me and her protectively.
I want to die.
“Mom, stop!” Aurora pushes her parents away. “Oh my fucking god. Sorry—I just… wow. No one’s ever thrown me a surprise party before. For anything. Ever! I can’t believe you put this together for me.”
I watch as Mom hugs her worried children. I heard what Frank’s sister said. Those are her real kids. Not me. I really shouldn’t have been here.
“Graham helped too!” Max’s voice is muffled.
“Graham!” Mom looks up at me, joy written on her face. “You guys all planned this together. All my babies!”
She smushes me into the huddle with my half-siblings.
“That makes me so happy that you guys all did this together.” She kisses each of us on the head, though Ryan and I have to crouch a little for her to reach.
“To be fair, Dani and Claire did most of it,” Shawn confesses.
“Well then, Dani and Claire, you’re my babies now too!” They’re squeezed into a big hug.
“We made sure you have a pickle fountain.”
“Just so you know, that’s basically where I’m going to be all evening,” she jokes.
“The martinis are right next to it.” Dani smiles.
“Great, because I need a drink.”
Claire dabs at her face.
“I think you’ve earned it. But first—” Dani hefts a big white box. “You’ll probably want a nice outfit. Frank, we brought your slacks and shirt.”
Frank is still looking at Mom in concern.
“Frank, did you see this? The kids threw us a party! A surprise party!”
“And there are those cupcakes you like, and a mac and cheese bar,” Bridget tells him.
“What! You guys got all my favorites!” Mom is excited.
“And your favorite band is here.”
“What?” Mom says, confused, as Claire and Bridget try to shoo her off to go change.
Familiar notes start up at the stage at the other end of the venue.
“You have Duran Duran here?” Mom looks like she’s about to faint. “Graham! How much did that cost?”
“Mom, this is your party. Can you please let Graham spend money on you? My god.” Hannah throws up her hands.
“Frank!” Several older guys with military haircuts surround Frank.
“You got my old Gulf War buddies here!” Frank looks choked up.
“They had to bribe us with single malt and a private plane ride,” they joke and slap him on the back.
I start to relax.
Mom and Frank are both grinning as Ryan and Claire shoo them off to change.
When they come back out in their party clothes, they’re greeted with a round of applause.
Duran Duran plays “Hungry Like the Wolf” while Mom makes Frank dance with her.
Dani slips an arm around my waist.
“Isn’t this great? It started off a little shaky, but we got there!”
I want to kiss her. Instead, I cup her face.
“Thank you. I don’t think… Well, I don’t know if Aurora would have been this happy without your ideas. I don’t plan parties. This is a really big event.”
“I’m so happy everyone could make it. Even Frank’s dancing. Look at him.”
I twirl Dani around for the final chords of the song.
Mom reaches up, and the lead guitarist swings her up onto the stage.
She stands in front of the microphone, a huge smile on her face.
“I just want to say”—she pauses for dramatic effect—“that I really hope my kids didn’t plan any party games tonight. You know how I feel about games at parties.”
Everyone laughs at the joke.
“But seriously… Duran Duran. That’s so crazy.
You guys are my favorite band.” She starts to get choked up.
“When I was kidnapped—snatched off the street, whatever—at first I was scared, then I was pissed off, because I was planning on going to the Duran Duran concert and then couldn’t.
Obviously. Bummer. And then you guys weren’t touring when I was rescued.
When Frank—there’s Frank, my hero—when he rescued me.
You really should have been there. It was like a movie.
All ‘bang bang, I’m the FBI, and I’m emotionally stunted, and I have a drinking problem. ’”
“Aurora!” Her mom is horrified.
“And then I had kids—well, more kids. But now I’m here at a Duran Duran concert—my own personal concert! It’s weird how life works out. You get so busy, the years pass, and you look up, and time has gone by so quickly.” She clutches the microphone with both hands.
“But you meet all these cool people, and you get to do all this cool stuff, and the coolest people I’ve met on this planet are my kids. Ryan, Bridget, Hannah, Max, Sean, and of course, Graham.” She smiles at me.
Dani squeezes my hand.
“I’m so happy to be your mom. And obviously all the guilt-tripping works”—she laughs at her own joke—“because ta-da! Big party! All to celebrate me. And you, Frank. But mostly me.” She briefly poses with her hands under her chin.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is a pickle fountain, which I did not know was a thing but will be featured at every large gathering from here on out. Drink, fuck, be merry!”
“Aurora!” her mom yells.
“Whoo!” Mom cheers and gives the crowd the middle finger. “Rock on! Whoo!”
The band laughs then starts hammering their guitars for another ’80s song.
“Let me check on that bartender.” Dani squeezes me. “Gran says he has a habit of seducing guests. That’s how he and Gran met.”
“Why did you hire him?”
“He’s an artist with cocktails,” she says simply. “Also, he’s highly entertaining. Even my mom thinks so.”
“Which is saying something.”
“Exactly.”
I hang back on the periphery of the party, making polite chitchat with some of Mom’s more distant relatives.
“That was nice of you to do this for your mom,” Frank says stiffly, coming up beside me.
“I wasn’t going to come. Dani made me.”
We stare out at the sea of people.
“I think I might have come on a little bit strong at the beginning. It’s hard for me to trust after… everything,” Frank says haltingly, “but obviously Dani seems to really care about you.”
“You think so?”
“Well…” Frank runs a hand through his short gray hair.
“I have friends with kids about your age—they got started a little earlier than me, of course. They say that their daughters-in-law basically stole their sons. Convinced them to cut off from their families. Their sons gave them all sorts of excuses—it’s easier because of the kids to see the mom’s family, she doesn’t feel like she should have to travel, she doesn’t like his mom, whatever. ”
“Dani’s not like that.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Frank is silent for a moment. Then he says, “But honestly, Dani would have been within her right to, you know, tell you that it would be better for you to forget all of this. Cut us all off.”
He turns to me. “I know how my relatives, how your mom’s relatives, talk about you. I’m not stupid. I was paid to be observant for a living.”
“Yeah,” I bark.
“So I’m glad you’re giving us another chance. I know it means a lot to your mom. She’s been worried that you’d see Dani and her family as a lifeline in the ocean and just let her whisk you off.”
“I would never leave Mom. Unless she wanted me to,” I add hastily, lest it be a new red flag planted in my graveyard of them.
“You have to admit you belong in Dani’s world more than ours.”
I shrug. I don’t know what to say.
Frank pats me awkwardly on the shoulder. “Gonna go.” He holds up his empty beer bottle.
I feel like a fraud.
Dani’s talking to the caterers.
“You should enjoy the party,” she tells me when I head over to her.
“I’m hosting it for your mom and Frank and their family.
I’m here to make sure it all goes smoothly so you all can relax and enjoy yourselves.
” Dani’s eyes are shining. “Honestly, she’s so amazing, having to overcome all of that. She deserves it.”
“Yeah, I know she does.”
What Mom really deserves is to not have me as a son.
Stuart stole almost a decade off her life.
And now I’m doing the same thing to Dani.
Roping her into my family drama. Leading her on.
Doing that with her in bed. Treating her like my girlfriend.
Wasting her time, keeping her from living her real life, from being happy.
I’ve turned into my dad.
But the way Dani’s looking up at me?
Well, my mom never looked at Stuart like that.