Page 46 of Canadian Boyfriend

“News to me,” I said.

We sat on the chesterfield by the tree. Well, Aurora and I sat. Olivia was buzzing with excitement. It must have been rubbing off on Earl 9, who was wheeling in a circle, which was something he only did when he was extra amped. “I saved my allowance, and Lauren helped me get this.”

“That was so nice of you!” Aurora opened the small box to reveal… a figurine of a dancer. I had to cough to cover a laugh.

“Oh my gosh!” Aurora exclaimed, glancing at me, then quickly away. The little ballerina had a huge head and big eyeballs, and she was posing with her leg out behind her. A kitten sat at her feet, gazing up at her adoringly. “I love it!” I could hear the laughter in Aurora’s tone, but it wasn’t mean laughter. “Thank you! I have something for you, too.”

Olivia opened a startlingly large present to reveal… a cauldron? It was a big cast-iron pot that hung on a rack. “So Miss Miller’s is a cover for a coven, eh?” I asked.

Aurora swatted my arm, and it did something weirdly zingy to me. Goose bumps rose beneath my flannel. “I thought we could do some pioneer cooking over the fire outside, Ingalls style.”

“Yes!” Olivia was thrilled. “This is so cool!”

It was a great idea. “And from me, to go with your ballerina figurine.” I handed over a Target gift card.

She looked a little crestfallen. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything!”

“It’s OK,” I said, and I bit my tongue to stop myself from adding something way too schmaltzy.You already got me something. You got me everything.

11—LOW STAKES

MIKE

Whatever progress I’d made with Olivia evaporated the next morning when she was getting ready for her trip. She was huffing around and making everything I suggested into an offense of the highest order.

“Is this making your mom’s look like not such a bad option?” I whispered to Aurora after Olivia flounced off, offended by my suggestion that she take her reading journal to Chicago and get a jump on the responses she had to do over the break. For a time, theLittle Housebooks had broken the logjam, but the reprieve hadn’t lasted. “Having to write responses about a bookruinsit,” she would say. “I just want to read them to read them.”

Which was a certain kind of progress, I supposed, as normally she never wanted to read for its own sake.

Aurora didn’t answer my question, just shot me a concerned look. I’d been trying to make a joke, but it’d come out more pissy than joking. Probably because Iwaspissed. We’d had such a nice few days, and now Olivia was going to leave in a snit.

She clomped down the stairs and reappeared in the kitchenholding her reading journal. She shoved it roughly into her backpack. “There. Are you happy now, Mike?”

“Don’tcall me that,” I snapped.

“What? Mike? Aka your name?”

“Yeah!” I yelled, and I felt terrible when her eyes widened in shock. I tempered my tone but could not get rid of the quaver in my voice as I asked, “Why are you doing that?”

She deflated. Her shoulders rounded forward, and her eyes filled with tears as she said, “I love Grandma and Grandpa, but I don’t want to live with them.”

Huh? “You don’t have to. It’s just a visit.”

“But how do you know that?”

“Because it’s decided. That’s why we did that mediation stuff.”

“But what if?”

“What if what?” I wasn’t following her logic.

“What if you change your mind?”

Oh my God. Was she seriously worried about that? Worse, had she been worried about that all this time? “Liv, love.” I had to stop to catch my breath. “That isnevergoing to happen.”

“But how can yousaythat? How can youknowthat? I’m so mean to you. What if you don’t want to pick me up at the end of the trip? What if you like it better here without me?”

I saw then what she had been doing.Tryingto get me to snap. Poking at the edges of what she feared, like when you can’t stop prodding an aching tooth with your tongue. The same way I’d skirted the edge of the abyss in those early months, needing, for some morbid reason, to remind myself of the proximity of this huge, horrible thing.

---