Everyone in the room looks at Adam, other than Eden, who looks down at the bottom of her wineglass. Adam appears genuinely confused, and I remember. She wanted to start fresh in college. She was planning to go by her given name. “He had an affair with my sister, Miranda.”
ADAM
I could not have written a more perfect way out of the mess that’s been unfolding in the last day than what Rini has set up for me. Ten minutes ago I went up to my room and from around the corner, overheard Eden reuniting with her husband. The scene was sweet—a little bit of sad backstory unfolded into a full-fledged declaration of love—but it sent me into a panic. If Eden was with Rick and I’d successfully abandoned Aimee, I would be alone. That was impossible. Unthinkable. Unbearable. But now I have a chance to reunite with Aimee in a grand way. I had been leaning in her direction, but fate made the decision for me.
I had an eerie feeling of déjà vu around Rini too. But she looks nothing like her sister, not really, the way our daughters Dylan and Clara bear little resemblance to each other. Now it makes sense why Rini was trying to force some confession out of me at the Moon Men event, after laying the groundwork in my reading, saying I had unpaid debts from ten years ago. Her whole shtick has been a farce.
“Don’t let this woman get into your head. Mira is old news. We’ve been through that,” I say to Aimee.
I hug Aimee and kiss her hair, her forehead, her neck. I tell her I love her. I love her so much. The more I hold her and touch her, the more my initial fear of being alone and anger at Eden fade. Maybe my affair with Eden was supposed to be brief, an instrument to bring us back to our rightful partners.
“Aimee, you’re the only one I love. No one else has ever made me better the way you do. You’ve always been the one.”
Aimee looks up at me, her eyes searching my face for reassurance.
“I know, we’ve been through a rough patch. But I never stopped loving you, not one tiny bit.”
It’s not a lie. Perhaps an exaggeration. But I do believe I love Aimee the best. It must be why I subconsciously picked Eden, who was in a poly relationship. I was looking for relief from feeling like a bad husband and father when Aimee was so focused on the needs of the girls while ignoring mine. I wasn’t looking for a way out. I was wrong.
“And now I can see how much you still care”—I gesture to the ripped pages on the ground, the sign of her fury—“and that our relationship isn’t all a social media facade for you. That’s all I ever wanted. I was afraid you’d never give it to me again.”
I trace my thumb along the dried tears streaking her face.
“Really? You think we can be good again?” Aimee asks, her voice small and delicate.
I nod, staring into her beautiful blue eyes.
“Really?” Margot repeats. Her voice is harder, but full of hope. This is what she wants too, even if I told her hours ago that it wasn’t possible.
“Really,” Eden confirms. I look behind me and Eden is safely wrapped in Rick’s arms, beaming at me. She doesn’t want to reveal how she broke the rules and betrayed Rick as much as I don’t want to admit that the affair Rini’s conjuring up from ten years ago wasn’t my only one.
“Not all of us have a happy ending,” Joe says, glaring across the room at Farah.
“Hey, Rick, kick Ted,” I say. Rick nudges Ted, who has passed out on the chair next to him. He’s not even hungover yet because he’s still clearly drunk. But it doesn’t matter. I want an audience.
I drop down to my knee. “Aimee, will you marry me?”
“What?” she asks.
“Marry me all over again. Let me reclaim my love and commitment to you from this moment until death do us part.”
Lightning and thunder strike again.
“Excuse me, I’m the one who has something to say,” Rini says. “And I wasn’t finished.”
“Why are you talking?” I ask, annoyed that she’s ruining my moment.
“Because it’s my house.”
“Right, your astrology house. Are you even a real astrologist? According to me and my wife, all you did was further your own agenda in your so-called readings.”
“Stop it,” Margot shouts, putting an end to my Rini takedown. She squeezes her eyes shut and presses the heels of her hands into her head as if the pressure could make her explode. “I cannot take it anymore.”
I stare at her, but she won’t look at me. She is not about to ruin this elegant exit. She better not. I’ll kill her if she did.
MARGOT
The living room is as scattered and confused as I am. Aimee stands there dopily looking up at her cheating husband, unsure what to say or do with his second marriage proposal. Pages of Adam’s novels trail like tears from the library. Joe and Farah look sad, like they’re at a wedding thinking they’ll be alone forever, while previously poly Eden and Rick look like blissful witnesses to the potential joy of monogamy. What is happening?
“Stop it,” I shout. The sneaky omissions, the sudden revelations, the doubt, the lies. “I cannot take it anymore.”
I need fresh air.
Through the sliding glass door, I step outside into the rain. I fight the wind to make my way across the lawn, water collecting in beads on my hair and sweater. I reach the dock and sit cross-legged on the wooden planks. The drama of the storm feels like student theater compared to the telenovela inside.
Is Rini a fake? Could she have falsified all of those glowing reviews? Does that mean I’m not pregnant? I desperately want to take that test now, to know what I can believe in and what I can’t.
And what about Adam and Aimee? A few hours ago Adam said they were broken beyond repair; now he wants to recommit. Was it all for show, or was Eden a huge mistake, as I’d suspected all along?
Do I need to have faith in Rini’s reading of my star chart for the things I want to be true? What if we had never come here this weekend—would it be real anyway?
Does what I want even matter?
A clap of thunder booms out of nowhere, as if in response to my question. It feels as if all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the air and I can no longer breathe.
Farah and Aimee approach, their heads down against the wind.
“Are you okay?” Farah asks.
