Chapter 14
14
Theo is woken by the assault of cold air on his bare chest, the song “Wake Up” by Hilary Duff blasting through his Bluetooth speakers. He groans, palming the mattress for the duvet to cover his skin, to cover his ears . Unable to locate the warmth, his eyes open and— shit . Evelyn is standing over him, his duvet in her hand. It’s going to smell like lavender vanilla now. Like her. She’s dressed in jeans and a gray sweater. She looks so cozy. Half-asleep Theo wants to pull her toward him, wants to splay his ice fingers across her torso, nestle into her, and fall back to sleep. Instead, his palms sink into the mattress as he sits up and blinks the sleep out of his eyes, considering which offense is the worst.
The cold.
Evelyn’s face.
Hilary Duff.
“ Evelyn .” Theo reaches for the pullover crumpled in a ball next to his bed. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“We’re late,” she says.
Fuuuuuck.
Did Theo really, for one second, believe she forgot that in exchange for participating in a pickleball tournament, he promised to join her for breakfast with his dad? No. But after two breakfast-less Sundays passed… he definitely hoped. Evelyn slept in until noon the morning after the Pickleball Incident. Theo woke up to a text from Jacob. Evelyn ok? It splintered his heart, the concern in that question. He leapt out of bed to check on her but didn’t dare enter her room unannounced, just pressed his ear to the door, her soft snoring enough to crack his heart fully in half. Jacob canceled breakfast the following week. He had, quote, A Thing . No, Evelyn didn’t elaborate. No, Theo didn’t ask.
“Theodore.”
Glasses on, Evelyn’s features sharpen into focus.
Her brow, furrowed.
Her lips, a devastating pout.
Her finger, jamming into the volume button on her phone.
“I’m up.” Theo covers his ears. “ Fuck . I’m up!”
Silence.
“Ten minutes,” she says, then pivots. “I’ll be in the car.”
Bossy.
Theo groans. Relishes the silence, then runs a frustrated hand through his pillow-matted curls, exhausted because he was up until 3:00 a.m. finishing midyear report cards. His students are a blast, but the endless paperwork and admin and parent complaints are soul draining. And the short holiday week has been a week .
Monday, Ms. Connors pushed back their meeting about the planetarium again .
Tuesday, Annabelle vomited in front of the trash.
Wednesday, Jeremiah’s mother expressed concern over graphic novels being included on the winter independent reading list. He owes her an email but needs to simmer first, because how he wants to respond will probably (definitely) get him fired. Jeremiah, a reluctant reader, loves graphic novels. Why is that a problem? Theo wants his students to engage with stories, to fall in love with stories, in whatever medium is most accessible to them.
Thursday, he spent Thanksgiving in Disneyland, swallowing his irrational fear of Mickey Mouse. Is it irrational? Or is a five-foot-tall anthropomorphic mouse not, objectively, terrifying?
Yesterday was Lori’s birthday.
So.
He really just wants to sleep in.
Instead, Theo stands and pulls on the nearest pair of jeans, which are wrinkled from being crumpled on the floor because his laundry situation is borderline desperate. He promised breakfast. He did not promise to put effort into said breakfast. It’s pointless, to try for Jacob Cohen.
To care.
Ten minutes later—as he’s brushing his teeth—his speakers become a torture device once more, this time the clip with the disastrous run of la la la s from Raise Your Voice . Evelyn exploited her pickleball-related injury with a Hilary Duff marathon and subjected Theo to that marathon. He’s still paying the price. Ever since the tournament, she’s been a specific combination of distant and hostile. It came up in therapy this week. Brian wondered if Theo asked Evelyn about this energy. Theo doesn’t need to ask. He knows. There’s a distinct before and after. Pickleball. Before and after Theo put her in a position that almost reinjured her. For what?
“Was that necessary?” Theo asks, sliding into the passenger seat.
“You’re here. So.”
But why?
He wants to ask, but the question would come out choked, strangled—and besides, does he even know what he’s asking? Why is this her condition? Why did he agree? Why does she still believe that his father is capable of being more than exactly who he is? If anyone should understand the particular pain of being failed by a parent, isn’t it Evelyn? Why does a small part of him dare to hope that this time, this time , Jacob will prove him wrong?
He doesn’t ask.
Jacob opens the front door before they’re even out of the car, as if he’s been waiting for them. Her. Two things strike Theo: the tenderness in his father’s eyes when they land on Evelyn and his complete lack of facial hair. Clean-shaven Jacob is jarring. It’s like looking at himself with an age filter—his curls grayer, the lines in his face carved deeper. But he’s the carbon copy of his father only in appearance.
“It’s been a minute,” Evelyn says in lieu of hello, crossing the threshold into the house.
It’s that easy for her.
Not Theo. He’s stuck, his feet glued to the concrete stoop and hating how much he wants this —breakfast with his dad, with his wife —to be real. How the simplest of desires can be the most complicated, feel the most impossible. Once he steps in it’s only a matter of time before the illusion is shattered, before he feels like a loser for even pretending at all.
Jacob clears his throat. “Theo.”
He looks into the mirror, at his future face. “Dad.”
Jacob opens the door a tad wider and despite his better judgment, Theo takes the step inside that feels more like a leap. It’s tidier than last time—the papers in neat piles, the wood surfaces dusted, an old photo of their family of three hung up above the fireplace. He blinks at the image of Baby Theo looking straight at the camera, of Lori’s eyes on Theo, of Jacob fixated on Lori.
“What’s on the menu this week?” Evelyn asks.
Her question pulls Theo’s eyes from the photo and his nose toward the scent of cinnamon sweetness.
“I’ve got a spinach and mushroom frittata in the oven,” Jacob says, sitting and sagging into the worn leather La-Z-Boy in the living room. In response, they sit opposite him on the couch. “Cinnamon apple scones are cooling on the stove. I used vegan butter this week. You’ve been warned.”
Evelyn’s nose scrunches. “Thank you.”
Theo’s quiet, processing.
Jacob is baking again?
Attempting vegan pastries?
Jealous.
You are jealous.
“Don’t thank me yet, kid.” Jacob chuckles—the fuck ?—before his eyes land on the scabs that run along the knuckles of her right hand. “Who did you punch and what did they do to deserve it?”
Evelyn snorts, then shakes her head. “Bad fall.”
“Not because of Theo again, I hope.”
Jacob says this so casual, so matter-of-fact. Theo tenses and lets the accusation sting, more ashamed than upset as Evelyn loops her right arm through his and presses their palms together. His fingers brush the rough, jagged skin. My fault. My fault. My fault.
Theo knows it.
Jacob knows it.
Evelyn can admit it.
But she just asks, “When has Theo ever let me fall?”
Oh.
He braces for the comeback, unprepared for the guttural hmph , the rise and fall of Jacob’s (equally Eugene Levy–esque) eyebrows, the changing of the subject entirely. “And how’s the fellowship? Has Sadie Silverman grasped yet that you know what a fucking mixer does?”
“I think so?”
Evelyn releases his hand, basking in Jacob’s attention, and that ugly jealous feeling reignites as she shares updates Theo already knows and Jacob listens. Asks follow-up questions. Is attentive. He doesn’t love her relationship with his dad, but he really hates witnessing it, hates even more how much he wants it for himself. Theo is supposed to not care.
Not want .
But accept.
“And you, Theo?” Jacob’s eyes shift to him. “How’s… school?”
His jaw tenses, burned too many times to be tempted to bask. “Good.”
“Good.”
The oven beeps.
Jacob stands. “Frittata’s ready.”
His dad cannot escape fast enough.
“He’s baking?” Theo asks, as soon as Jacob is out of earshot.
“He’s chefing , Theodore.”
Theo knows that his father is capable in the kitchen, denies that maybe he himself is capable because of Jacob. Theo’s memories in the kitchen are so vague, so entirely incompatible with the rest of his childhood that he sometimes wonders if he made them up. Images resurface. Kneading dough together, the gentle pressure of his father’s hands over his. Waking up to the sound of the stand mixer at 2:00 a.m. Each of them licking batter straight off a beater. Feeling close .
“Did you know he wanted to be a pastry chef?”
Theo shakes his head, but if his memories are true, it doesn’t surprise him.
“He applied to the Culinary Institute of America,” Evelyn continues. “Got in, too… but his father wouldn’t let him go. Told him that men didn’t belong in a kitchen and encouraged him to pursue a business degree, to follow him into real estate, to be a provider. He listened. How messed up is that?”
Theo blinks. “How do you know this?”
“We talk.”
“Right.”
“It makes me wonder who he would be. You know?”
“No.”
“It’s context.”
Context that, if anything, illuminates exactly who Jacob Cohen is.
A coward.
The frittata is delicious, the scones even better, and it’s infuriating. Unlike Evelyn, Theo doesn’t want to wonder if Jacob Cohen, the pastry chef, would’ve been a different sort of dad. Supportive. Nurturing. Not a sexist asshole. What’s the point of wondering? It’s not who he is. Theo swallows his fury with each bite of his father’s food in pointed, indignant silence. Allows Evelyn to be the one to carry the conversation, to ask questions, to care.
“How was last week?” Evelyn asks.
“Macarons are not for the faint of heart.”
It turns out, Jacob’s thing last weekend was a master class with a Great British Bake Off winner. He shows them the photo he took, holding up his sad, deflated macarons next to a white woman in chef garb, whose blond hair is graying at the roots. Theo recognizes the woman. Bake Off is one of his comfort shows. It reminds him of his mom.
Evelyn laughs. “You tried?”
“Silvie says I have potential.”
“Silvie?”
Theo surprises himself with the sound of his own voice, but who the fuck is Silvie ?
No one named Silvie has ever won Bake Off .
“My… erm… I started going to a grief group?” Jacob admits. “Silvie leads it.”
Theo’s eyebrows rise. “Oh.”
“It’s helped.”
Theo thought his father’s admission was going to be that he’s dating, that Silvie is his girlfriend. But this? It’s almost worse. It’s a messed-up thing to think… for this to be Theo’s reaction to his father seeking help. But. Why now? Theo tried to nudge his father toward grief counselors, toward therapists. Back when he cared. His therapist told him not to push. Said that Jacob would have to want it for himself. He’s right. Theo knows it’s irrational, childlike even, to want Jacob to do something, to do anything, to try, for him .
But it still hurts.
He controls his emotions, then takes them out on the dishes, unable to sit in uncomfortable silence when Evelyn excuses herself to use the bathroom. Theo scrubs away the remnants of breakfast on the plates, watches the crumbs wash down the sink.
Jacob sets empty plates on the counter next to him. “You know, we’re more alike than you think.”
As hard as he works to be nothing like his father, there’s a whisper of truth in those words.
Both father and son are at ease in a kitchen.
Both left cheeks dimple when they smile.
Both settled in their path instead of chasing after more.
Theo’s eyes shift from the dishes. “Yeah?”
Jacob nods, then says, voice low, “We both fell for women who deserve better.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
He hates himself the moment those words leave his lips, that he gave his father the exact reaction he provoked. Hot water scalds his knuckles. Theo feels the burn on his skin, in his chest. He drops the plate, and it clatters against stainless steel. Not even a grief-counseled, pastry chefing Jacob Cohen can stop himself from speaking words that he knows will hurt.
“Don’t fuck it up. Be the man she deserves.”
“I—”
“Theodore?” Evelyn’s voice cuts him off, thankfully. “Ready to go home?”
Theo can’t escape fast enough. He says goodbye to his father with a curt nod, then watches Evelyn give him a stiff hug, the earlier warmth evaporated. Jacob asks if they’re still on for next week. He’s making croissants. She nods, then grabs Theo’s hand and leads him out the door, away from awkward words, away from painful memories, away from the house that stopped feeling like a home the moment his mother took her last breath within those walls.
“I’m sorry,” Evelyn says as soon as they’re in the car, as soon as it’s safe to feel.
Theo, seeing tears in her eyes, immediately softens. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” she insists, her voice fierce, angry . “You’re right. Jacob’s stuff, his context… it’s not an excuse. And me pushing this breakfast on you is because of my own stuff, which is, like, also not an excuse. I thought… I’m so sorry.”
“Ev. It’s okay.”
“ No .” Tears fall down her cheeks, and his instinct is to reach toward her, to wipe them away. He doesn’t. “I see it. Okay? I see it. But the baking, the group therapy… I thought it’d be good for you to just see that he’s trying? But he’s not. At least not with you. I’m the actual worst.”
“I promise you’re not.”
Evelyn shakes her head, then is quiet for the short drive home, not speaking again until she parks and cuts the engine.
“I hope you don’t believe him.”
“What?”
“You’re not Jacob. And someday? Whoever she is? You deserve her.” She shifts, pressing both her palms gently against his cheeks and he’s not sure if she’s freezing or if he’s on fire. His eyes meet hers. “Theodore. Listen. You deserve her. It. Love. A real marriage.”
Theo swallows.
Not her.
You.
You.
You.
He nods against her palms, the safest course of action. Lies. Ignores the frantic flutter of his heart when she lets go and heads inside. Ignores the truth that his father is right about one thing and one thing only. He doesn’t and has never deserved Evelyn Bloom.