I'd Give Anything(55)

“Well, I take that as a compliment. Even though, I think Trevor’s the one who’s the catch.”

Together, Iris and I looked at my brother, handsome in his immaculately cut jacket, listening to Avery talk to him in that way that he had, giving her his absolute attention, as if they were the only two people in the room.

“The funny thing is, if he hadn’t been her son, if she’d met him anytime in the past fifteen years or so, Adela would’ve approved of Trevor, too,” I said. “Not that he would have cared.”

“He wouldn’t have. He shut down the part of himself that cared about Adela a long time ago.”

I wanted to ask her if she thought he’d shut down the part of himself that cared about me, too. But I resisted.

“I guess you heard that Harris moved out,” I said.

“Kirsten told us. Are you and Avery okay?”

“I am. Avery is playing her feelings about it all very close to the vest. But I don’t think she is okay. Not yet.”

“She will be, though. Look at her,” said Iris. “So self-assured and strong.”

Avery stood in the midst of a party full of adults, talking with adamant hands, inhabiting her beauty with ease.

I nodded. “She is. Since the Harris troubles started, she’s been pushing boundaries, taking matters into her own hands. It took me off-guard, and I don’t think I’m quite used to it yet, but yes. She’s stronger than I knew.”

“Like her mom,” said Iris, with a smile. “You’re probably stronger than you knew, too.”



After the champagne toasts, when the rhythm of the party had shifted into ending mode, and I was in the kitchen, washing glasses and gearing up to go find Gray, he found me instead.

He stood, gleaming against the gleaming refrigerator door and said, “Hey, Zinny.”

I smiled. “Zinny.”

“I guess I should’ve said Ginny. Since we’re adults and everything.”

“Look at you, coming in here to talk to me. Beating me to it, when I promised Kirsten I’d find you and talk to you.”

Gray laughed his one and only laugh. “I promised the same thing. Six sentences?”

“Possibly six and a half.”

Shyness overtook us both.

Finally, I said, “I heard you and Evan are having a baby. That’s wonderful.”

“It is, isn’t it? And we found out it’s a girl. A daughter.”

“Your daughter,” I said, correcting him.

“My daughter.” He shook his head in wonder. “I don’t think I really comprehend that yet, that she’ll be my daughter.”

“I didn’t comprehend it until I saw Avery’s face,” I said. “She squinted at me from under her tiny furrowed forehead, and I said, ‘Hey, I know you.’ You’ll recognize your daughter when you see her.”

Gray said, “Thank you. Avery’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” I said.

The shy silence settled over us again, and my brain began filling it with all the things I wanted to say to him, beginning with “I’m sorry.” I wanted to tell him that for every single second of the past twenty years, I would have given anything for another chance at being his friend. I wanted to ask if it was too late. But I was too afraid of the answer. What I finally did say took every scrap of courage I had.

“Gray and Zinny, standing in the same room, talking about our daughters.” And then: “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to come, and I know you’re here because of Kirsten. But still, I’m so glad that you came.”

Gray looked down at the floor, and I held my breath, worrying I’d said that wrong thing. Gray looked up and said, “Maybe you can help me stock up on some daughter-raising advice. I’ll need it.”

It was all I could do not to burst into tears.

“I look forward to it,” I said.



When everyone had left and Avery and I were collecting plates and champagne flutes, she said, “I think you should all be friends again.”

“I’d like that,” I said. “I hope we can.”

She put down the plate she was holding. “Mom, I’m really not asking you what happened the night you wrote the torn-out journal entry. But I want to ask something about it.”

“Okay. I’ll answer if I can.”

“Is whatever happened the reason you stopped being friends with Gray and CJ?”

I sat down in a dining room chair. “Sort of. Something happened and I couldn’t tell them about it. I couldn’t tell anyone. And no matter how hard I tried to pretend it didn’t happen, that secret—the fact that I knew and they didn’t and I couldn’t tell them—came between us.”

“Did it have to?”

“Now, I realize it didn’t have to. But I couldn’t see my way to that back then, when I was eighteen. Back then, it felt hopeless. It felt like the secret poisoned everything, and there was no—no antidote.”

My daughter held me in place with her clear gaze. “But that’s a metaphor, right? A secret isn’t poison. It’s just an event that is supposed to turn into a memory like everything else does. It can only have power if you give it power.”

“That is very astute,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve considered it in quite that light before.”