Page 28 of Canadian Boyfriend

Aurora:Anyway. Sorry, that was a lot.

Aurora:I should eat some pie. I’m going to eat some pie.

I wasn’t responding fast enough. I was thinking about that first time we went for ice cream. I was also thinking about her telling me about her panic attacks.

Mike:Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m only saying this because I’m currently undergoing lots of it myself, but have you considered therapy?

Aurora:I did a bit of it. When I first came home from New York, I was still covered on my mom’s insurance for a while. It helped.

Mike:But no insurance now?

Aurora:I do have it through Starbucks, which is the main reason I’m working there. But the deductible is big. Too bigfor normal, nonemergency things. But if I get hit by a bus, I’m covered.

I had gone from living in a country where everyone had health care to working for organizations that provided me with generous medical insurance because they had a vested interest in my health. I was not paying a single cent out of pocket for Dr. Mursal. When I broke my teeth, I could get the fanciest fake ones known to science. I knew I was incredibly lucky, but damn.

Aurora:Speaking of Starbucks, I really should hit the sack.

Mike:Right. Sorry.

Aurora:There you go again!

She found it amusing that I was always apologizing.

Mike:Can’t help it. It’s a known side effect of being Canadian. Anyway, have a good night.

Aurora:You, too. Don’t accidentally cut off any limbs like Ma. There’s no such thing as lifesaving pie in the real world.

The next Tuesday, I was supposed to be back in town, but not until late. Aurora had agreed to stay and put Olivia to bed. But the air travel gods smiled on me. The team got to the airport early, and there was one open seat on a flight leaving imminently. I didn’t even have to play the sad single dad card;my teammates rose as one and insisted I take it. I decided not to tell Aurora I was getting home early. I wanted to surprise Olivia. Which, come to think of it, didn’t really explain why I didn’t tellAurora. I guess I wanted to surprise both of them.

I heard the music from the garage. It wasn’t a song I recognized as one Olivia had in rotation, but it seemed vaguely familiar. I kicked off my shoes and tiptoed from the mudroom into the kitchen, shushing Earl 9, who had rolled over to greet me. Olivia and Aurora were dancing, but not like in class. They wererocking out. There was no choreography except whatever was moving them from inside their bodies. And that’s what it looked like, like some internal, insistent power source was impelling them to move. And Olivia was singing. I was gobsmacked. My sour, angry girl who’d had so much taken from her wassinging. She and Aurora were both shout-singing along with the chorus, something about “the beat.”

Olivia was rotating as she boinged in place, like Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh if he’d stopped moving forward and was spinning on his axis. She was looking at the ceiling, so she didn’t see me as she spun, butIsawher. I saw pure, unmitigated joy on my daughter’s face. It made me realize how long it had been. It made me realize the sheer, exhaustingeffortwe had both been expending—the only way out is through—dragging ourselves through the weeks, the days, the minutes. With so much to carry, too. But all the stuff she carried, my Liv, she had, at that moment, set aside. I wasn’t kidding myself that this surrender I was seeing, this liberation, was permanent. But it was happening, and it was amazing. And watching it happen to her sort of… made it happen to me? A little bit? My body felt different all of a sudden, like it wanted to dance, too, even though I was not normally a person who danced.

It made me tear up. I went back to the mudroom and got hold of myself. I had been judging my progress by how often I cried, congratulating myself on the fact that I did so with decreasing frequency. What I had failed to account for was the possibility that tears could behappy.

I had not imagined a future in which I would ever cry happy tears again.

But here we were. I swiped them away, though. As much as I was glad—and grateful—to have had this moment, I had to get my shit together and go back in there. I didn’t want to miss the dancing.

Dear Mike,

I finally quit the mall in anticipation of senior year. Something had to give, and even though my mom had been saying it was “my choice” whether to quit or not, what else was it going to be? I miss it. I knew I would, but maybe not how much or how intensely. I realized (once it was gone) that the mall was the only place I could be free. I know that sounds dumb. It was just a chain coffee shop—I don’t need to be so dramatic. But when I was at work I didn’t have my mom breathing down my neck. People only knew about ballet if I told them. And if I did, they generally thought it was cool. Probably because most of the staff were college students, or genuine adults. Anyway, I felt less lonely at the mall for some stupid reason.

But on the plus side, not working at Caribou means no temptation to drink five-hundred-calorie coffees. And my timing was good, as I quit before they started putting out their pumpkin spice stuff, which was always hard to resist. I’m already down three pounds, and I think I might have a shot at Clara this winter. Remember last year when Emma got Clara and I was a mouse? She was the star, and I was a rodent? This year’s motto is: Mouse No More!

Love you to the moon and back,

Rory

7—PIE DEALER

RORY

In a surprising twist, Mike Martin had not responded to my admission about my food problems—I still had no idea what had possessed me to tell him—with alarm. He hadn’t been shocked or appalled. He hadn’t tried to fix me. He had, however, started putting pie in his fridge. And since he’d previously made it a point to tell me to help myself to whatever I wanted when I was at his house, I ate the pie. Well, I ate a sliver of each one. And holy cow, pie wasamazing. I never knew what happened to the rest of each pie after I’d had my slice, because I knew Mike Martin had to watch his diet, but next time there would be a whole new kind of pie in there.

It sort of felt like Mike Martin and I were becoming genuine friends. For example, here it was a Thursday night, Mike Martin was in a hotel room in New Jersey, and I was lying on my bed supposedly cruising apartment listings, but really texting with Mike Martin. We were not talking about Olivia. We were ranking pies.

Aurora:It’s still pecan as #1 for me, but I might accept your argument about cream cheese pecan as #2 in myrankings, even though I know you’re trying to convert me to your cream pie cult.

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