Chapter 3
three
“I’ll take the food if you get the mail,” Sebastian said as he pulled back into the driveway later the next morning after picking up takeout for brunch.
I wasn’t surprised that he wanted to go in immediately—Nora would definitely be inside, along with all our siblings and their partners as well.
I was the only one in the family that was totally single as a Pringle.
Well, me and Mum. But I didn’t imagine her getting in a relationship anytime soon.
The thought made me sad all over again, just like every time I thought of Dad—that small ache in my heart, the reminder of the way everything had been so perfect once, and how it had all fallen apart last summer when he walked out on his family without a backwards glance.
I wandered over to the mailbox on the side of the house, my Uggs dragging against the hot concrete driveway.
I pulled out the large collection of envelopes inside, flipping through them with limited focus since I knew none of them would be for me.
The only time I ever got mail was when report cards came around.
The house was lively as I walked inside. I kicked off my shoes and stepped over my dance bag by the front door, promising myself I’d take it upstairs later but knowing it was probably going to sit there until Monday when I had my next dance class again.
I was about to walk in and join my siblings when I reached the final envelope in the stack. It was different than the other ones, more square and heavier. Across the front, in beautiful handwritten calligraphy, was written The Novaks.
I stared at it as I wandered further into the house, letting the sound of my siblings chatting wash over me.
They were all set up in the living room, pulling out the containers of food and setting them out on the coffee table.
Mum was working today and had already left, so it was just us kids for brunch.
Technically, there were only four of us siblings—me, Sebastian, Lavender, and my twin, Imogen—but the living room was crowded with their significant others too.
“What’s that?” Imogen asked, lifting her head from her boyfriend’s shoulder and indicating toward the envelope I was still holding.
“I’m not sure,” I said. I turned the letter over in my hand, then I handed it over to her so she could see. She frowned a little as she looked at the writing. Cole leaned in closer beside her to get a closer look as well.
“What is it?” I asked. “Do you recognize it?”
She chewed on her lip and looked away nervously.
And that was pretty much when I knew. If there was one thing Imogen refused to talk about, it was the fact that she had been visiting Dad for months after he had abandoned our whole family.
The fact that she hadn’t even told me—her own twin sister— about it hurt the most. I’d forgiven her, of course.
I knew the circumstances were weird. I understood why she didn’t want to tell me about it.
But the look on her face right now told me there was something about it that was popping into her head now.
“What is it?” I repeated. Everyone was staring at her now, and she looked away, embarrassed. She cleared her throat.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Hilary’s handwriting,” she said.
Lavender gasped. Nora jumped forward to see the writing. Sebastian’s jaw tightened, and I stared at the letter in my hand as if it were a bomb.
“Are you sure?” I asked. My voice came out pitifully meek, the same way it did any time that I thought about Dad.
“Pretty sure,” Imogen said, dragging the word out slowly. “But, you know, maybe it’s nothing.”
“Maybe it’s an invitation to their wedding,” Sebastian said flatly.
“Don’t even joke about that.” Lavender practically snarled the words at him. They stared at each other for a long minute, and then Sebastian sighed and looked away.
“Do you think I should open it?” I asked. I knew the answer. We would have to open it eventually. We didn’t have to respond, but we had to know what was going on. And Sebastian wasn’t completely wrong. The fancy cardstock and everything did make it seem almost like a wedding invitation. And...
“She is pregnant,” Imogen piped up, saying exactly what I’d been thinking. “Maybe they want to get married before she has the baby.”
My stomach turned. I hated the thought of Dad getting another woman pregnant.
Hated the idea of having another sibling, which was probably ridiculous of me, given that I was 16 and it wasn’t a big deal at all.
I wondered whether I would be upset about it if it had been my actual parents.
If it had been any other situation but this one.
I glanced around the room. Nobody seemed to want to be the one to open it and confirm.
Finally, Cole sighed and stood up, taking the letter out of my hand.
Cole was the most recent addition to our little family.
He and Imogen started dating back in January, but unlike Nora and Dean, we hadn’t known him before that.
Nora and Dean had lived next door to us for the nearly six years that we had lived here since we’d moved from the UK.
Dean was Sebastian’s best friend, and Nora had quickly become mine in recent months.
Cole was completely new, and I still sometimes felt like I was on uneven ground with him.
But if one thing was for sure, it was that he made my sister happy, and that’s all that mattered to me.
“Let me,” he said. With absolutely no grace at all, he tore the envelope open and pulled out the card inside. We all leaned in to take a look at it.
Cole’s face twisted as he read out, “You’re cordially invited to celebrate new beginnings.”
“Oh no,” Imogen muttered, putting her face in her hands. “They really are getting married.”
“Not exactly,” Cole said. Unable to take the anticipation, I snatched the card stock out of his hand and read it over myself.
You’re Cordially Invited to Celebrate New Beginnings
A Little Love is Growing… With hearts full of joy (and so much gratitude for unexpected blessings), Hilary Lennon requests the pleasure of your company at a baby shower honoring Baby Novak (arriving soon!)
Saturday, May 30
The North Glen Country Club
Dress code: Garden Party Chic in whites or neutrals
Because every moment matters, a light schedule will be followed:
12:00 PM: Arrival & Signature Mocktail (“The Fresh Start”)
12:30 PM: Guided Venue Tour
1:00 PM: Opening Circle: Sharing Our Journeys
1:30 PM: Baby Shower Games (Prizes Included!)
2:15 PM: Gift Opening
3:00 PM: Dessert + Wishes for Baby
3:45 PM: Group Photos
4:00 PM: Mom- and dad-to-be send off
Brunch, laughter, and a few surprises to celebrate the journey that brought us here and all the unexpected blessings of the last year.
Can’t wait to hug you all!!
xo Hilary
I was going to be sick. What the heck was wrong with this woman?
Couldn’t she just accept that we didn’t want to spend time with her?
That we didn’t want to know her? She was the reason our family has been torn apart, and now she expected us to come celebrate her baby like it wasn’t a symbol of our dad leaving us to start over with someone else?
Sebastian snatched the invitation out of my hand, his face getting angrier with every line he read.
Nora read it over his shoulder, eyes widening with each line.
Then Lavender took it from him, her cheeks getting red with anger the further she got down the card.
Then Dean from her, and so on until the whole room had read it and was expressing various degrees of seething.
“I hate that she’s calling it Baby Novak?” Lavender demanded, yanking the invitation back and glaring down at it. “She’s not even a Novak.”
Technically, given that this was Dad’s baby, Baby Novak wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t about to correct her on that. Lavender had a very hard time when Dad left, so if this makes her feel better, who am I to stop her?
“What do we think Opening Circle: Sharing Our Journeys means?” Nora asked.
“Group therapy disguised as a baby shower?” Dean suggested.
“I think I would actually prefer an hour of group therapy with that woman than to celebrate this,” Lavender muttered, tossing the invitation onto the table out of sight and grabbing a hashbrown for herself this time.
That got an actual laugh out of me, sharp and sudden, the kind that surprised you on the way out. The tight feeling in my chest loosened just a little.
“Oh my gosh, there’s a dress code,” Imogen said, reading the invitation off from where it sat on the table, almost like she was afraid to touch it. “Garden party chic. Are we supposed to cosplay as people who are okay with this?”
“Don’t forget the white or neutrals so you look good in the group photo,” Nora said cheerfully.
“Of course it is,” Imogen groaned. “Nothing says ‘blended family’ like all wearing coordinated outfits.”
I reached over and plucked the invitation from the table, scanning it again like it might get better.
“Wishes for baby,” Sebastian said. “What are we supposed to write? Congrats on existing, sorry about your parents?”
“We should RSVP ‘no’,” Lavender said, her voice still angry, but far less so than Sebastian’s.
“But she’ll still expect a gift,” Imogen said. “Maybe we send, like, a mountain of baby onesies.”
“A mountain of neutral baby onesies,” Nora added.
“Mountain of garden party style baby onesies,” I said.
That did it. Everyone dissolved again, overlapping laughter filling the room, loud and messy and familiar. I dropped onto the couch where Imogen and Cole had sat back down, landing half on Imogen’s lap and knocking my head against hers accidentally.
I glanced down at the invitation in my hand, at the perfect calligraphy and the carefully chosen words, all that effort to make something messy look beautiful.
“Are we actually going to respond?” I asked.
Sebastian snorted. “Oh, I’m responding.”
Lavender turned to him. “Seb—”