Page 6 of Brother in Law with Benefits

I end up in the kitchen making toast instead, at three-fifteen in the afternoon, standing at the counter in my work clothes because I forgot to change. Two pieces of sourdough. Peanut butter. This is what my life looks like when I am spiraling in a completely low-key, totally managed way.

My therapist would have thoughts. Several of them, probably.

I eat the toast and try not to think about the way Grant stood on that porch. The way he shifted to let me pass and I caught his scent and I've been haunted by that for approximately forty-five minutes. Five years of successfully not thinking about someone and then one afternoon on his mother's porch and here I am, twenty-eight years old, spiraling.

And underneath that, there's the other thing sitting in my chest that I'm actively not looking at, which is Patty announcing over chicken salad, casual as weather, that she called my mother back in February. That my mother had a work thing. That my mother, given a direct invitation to show up for her only daughter during the worst month of a cancer scare, chose Arizona over a phone call.

I knew that already, obviously. I was the one who found out first — a single text,can't make it hon, big week here, tell PattyI'm thinking of her, sent to me instead of to Patty, like even the excuse needed a middleman.

I just didn't know Patty knew. And I definitely didn't know Patty was going to say it out loud at a table with Grant sitting right there, watching me shut the conversation down in under four seconds like I've had practice, because I've been closing that particular door efficiently since I was sixteen years old and my father moved to Florida with a woman my age plus six and never once looked back to check if the door was actually shut behind him.

It's fine.I don't need it not to be fine. I built a whole life out of people who don't stay being background noise instead of a crisis — Patty stays, the clinic stays, and I don't need Grant Guilligan's assessment of my mother added to the pile of things I'm managing today.

I set down the plate. Look at the succulent on my windowsill.

It's a small thing — I got it at the grocery store because the care instructions said "thrives on neglect" and that felt relatable. It's doing fine, actually. Better than fine. It sits there in its little terracotta pot looking self-satisfied, and I think: good for you. Someone around here should be thriving.

I bought it the week after the divorce was finalized. Just stuck it on the sill and mostly forgot about it. The fact that it's still alive feels vaguely meaningful in a way I'm not examining too closely right now.

I rinse my plate and go to bed.

Close my eyes. Try the breathing technique from therapy. In for four, hold for four, out for four.

My brain, very helpfully, serves up the wedding.

Cooper's Barn reception hall. September. I'm twenty-three years old and four hours married to Chris Guilligan.

The DJ plays "Unchained Melody." Chris is nowhere. Someone said bathroom. Someone else said outside with hisfriends. I'm standing alone in my dress watching other couples sway, feeling stupid in the specific way you feel stupid when you're the bride and you're alone at your own wedding reception.

Then Grant appears.

"Dance with me." Not a question. An offer. His hand settles on my waist. We start moving.

He's thirty-eight. Fifteen years older. I barely know him — he flew in two days ago from somewhere overseas, showed up to the rehearsal dinner jet-lagged and quiet, said exactly as many words as the situation required and not one more.

Chris talks about his brother sometimes, always with this particular mix of resentment and awe that I recognized even then as a sign.

But right now Grant's here. And he's looking at me like I'm not the abandoned bride.

"You look beautiful," he says.

"Thank you."

"Chris is an idiot."

I laugh. Can't help it. "He's your brother."

"Doesn't make it less true."

We dance. He's good at it — confident lead, the kind where you don't have to think about where your feet go. His hand on my waist is warm through the fabric of my dress.

"Where are you living now?" I ask, because the silence is getting heavy.

"Baghdad. Infrastructure contract."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It can be." He spins me gently, catches me easily. "Someone has to build the roads."