Mistakes Were Made(24)

“Penis?” she said again.

He continued gesturing for more.

Rachel rattled off options. “Dick. Prick. Johnson.”

Jimmy reenacted his clue for the second word.

“Yeah, dress, we know,” Adam said.

“Dick dress,” Erin snickered to Rachel, who was beside her on the couch.

Rachel snapped her fingers like she’d gotten the answer and yelled, “Foreskin!”

At that, Parker fell off the couch.

Somewhere between the girls howling with laughter and the boys begging for the round to be over, Erin’s team figured out the answer was cocktail dress.

“Foreskin?!” Jimmy was incredulous. “Foreskin?!”

“Erin said dick dress! It made sense!” Rachel insisted.

“Can we please stop talking about foreskin?” Caleb groaned.

Melissa wiped tears from her eyes. “I’ve had too many children to laugh this hard without a bathroom break.”

Rachel poked Caleb in the side. “Is talking about your mom’s pelvic floor muscles better or worse than talking about foreskin?”

“Leave the boy alone and let’s go raid the fridge,” Erin said, suddenly desperately hungry.

Melissa joined them in the kitchen when she was done in the bathroom. They didn’t even bother with plates, just stacked full containers of leftovers in the microwave together.

When Erin was married, they’d visit Adam’s parents in upstate New York for Thanksgiving every other year. The last three years straight, Erin had spent the Saturday after the holiday in this home with these people. It was her favorite tradition, even if she had a kid in college now and was probably too old to be drunk in her friends’ kitchen at midnight eating leftover mashed potatoes.

She was too old for a lot of things, like being hung up on by someone she wasn’t allowed to have feelings for. Like being unable to get this woman out of her head. She was too old to not be an adult about the situation.

Erin looked up from her Tupperware full of potatoes to find Rachel and Melissa looking at her.

“Hmm?”

“What is with you tonight?” Rachel asked.

Erin furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Your head is in the clouds. You couldn’t even get Dances with Wolves!”

Rachel had always been way too perceptive for her own good.

“Maybe that was because of your poor excuse for charades-ing a wolf.”

“Charades-ing?”

“Leave her alone,” Melissa said.

“Yeah!” Erin said, delighted.

But then Melissa continued, “She’s too drunk to make real words.”

“Wait a minute, you were supposed to be on my side.”

Maybe she was too drunk to make real words. She certainly was too drunk to drive home. Adam’s lip curled with disdain when Erin handed Parker the keys, but what was the point of having a kid who could drive if you weren’t going to use them as a DD sometimes? Parker didn’t mind.

Erin didn’t feel like a bad parent for making Parker drive home; she did feel like a bad parent for thinking of Cassie on the drive.

Erin had just been so mean. Cassie hadn’t deserved that. Erin had belittled her. She hadn’t needed to. There was a middle ground between being honest and being cruel that she had skipped right over. If she weren’t in a car with her daughter, she’d text Cassie. Explain herself. Or—not explain herself, because she couldn’t talk about honesty with Cassie, that was the point, but she’d make it better, somehow.

It was probably a good thing Parker was driving her home.

When she woke up the next morning still thinking of Cassie, Erin sent the text she’d been considering the night before.

Erin [Today 7:03 AM]

I shouldn’t have been so rude. Parker is really looking forward to you visiting, and I am happy to have you.



* * *



Three weeks later, when Parker and Cassie rounded the corner in the airport, Erin had five uninterrupted seconds before Parker caught sight of her. She used them on Cassie. Cassie, who was in gray joggers and a hooded Keckley sweatshirt. Cassie, whose hair was piled in a bun on top of her head, or not quite the top of her head—messy and loose, it teetered sideways with every step. Cassie, who made Erin’s heart thump hard against her sternum.

And then Parker saw her and beamed, and Erin couldn’t do anything but beam right back.

“Baby!” she called.

Her arms were wide and her daughter rushed into them. It hadn’t even been a month since they’d last seen each other, but the hug loosened something in Erin anyway.

Cassie adjusted her backpack over her shoulder. She didn’t have a poker face to save her life, and Erin had no idea how they were supposed to do this.

They had an awkward moment of should-we, shouldn’t-we before Erin made the decision and hugged Cassie. Maybe she shouldn’t have. Maybe it was weird to hug your kid’s friend who you’d only met once. Erin had known Parker’s other friends since they were little; Nashua was small enough that most of them had gone to the same middle school—small enough Erin had gone to middle school with some of their parents. Cassie hugged her back, though. Erin wished it were uncomfortable; it’d be better for it to be awkward than for Cassie’s body to meld itself against hers so easily.