The Most Fun We Ever Had

by Claire Lombardo

“He’s five years old. He would’ve believed you over another kid,” she snapped. “Jesus Christ. I’m sorry if you were forced to grow up more quickly than you should’ve, but you’re almost a fucking adult. There’s no reason for you to try to ruin it for my kids.” “I didn’t—” My kids.

But she didn’t know how to navigate this space. Didn’t know what on earth she could say beyond I both bodily and psychologically want this, but I need you to tactfully and generously navigate our course from here on out, because I just can’t take the initiative myself.

How could she convey to him that she knew how embarrassing it would be if she were pursuing him romantically

Again, he was quiet, and he took a long sip of his beer. “How do you know I don’t have an agenda?” he asked, and she chewed the inside of her cheek, disappointed that her preemptive strike had not, in fact, deterred them from this excruciating topic. “Because. God, Ben. You’re normal. You’re, like, a regular person.”

A large percentage of her was trying to determine whether or not this was actually happening—and, if it was, how she was supposed to respond. Her first instinct was, she was almost positive, joy, complete elation and delight, but in the passenger seat sat the usual skepticism, the constant, hyperactive court reporter who transcribed her interactions with a healthy dose of cynicism: BEN EXPRESSES HIS AFFECTION FOR GRACE BECAUSE HE FEELS SORRY ABOUT THE FACT THAT SHE’S A MALADJUSTED ADULT CHILD WITH A JUST-OKAY ASS AND A SHAMEFULLY FAULTY GRASP ON NORMAL SEXUAL MATURATION.

“Did you call to scold me for getting mad because Jonah ruined Christmas for my son?” “Jonah is also your son, Violet.”

pacifist. Her mother, who gave her such a long leash. “Christ, Mom, I never wanted this. I don’t have room in my life for this.” “This being Jonah, you mean.” It was jarring to hear her mother sounding angry. “Sorry we don’t all quite have your free-love, open-door policy, Mom. Sorry some of us actually like for elements of our lives to not be utter chaos all the time.” “It’s my free-love open-door chaos that’s the reason Jonah isn’t getting shuffled through the child welfare system anymore, Violet. A fact that you’ve never acknowledged or expressed an ounce of gratitude for. This whole family has rallied to care for this kid, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder where you’ve been the last eight months. You’re his mother.”

And he was proud of Wyatt, the first time he’d ever been proud of another person: this goofy kid who’d just been let down by his parents for the first time in his life and still pulled it together enough to sing a whole song in front of his class.

Wyatt smiled baldly, trusting him like kids deserved to trust adults, or fifteen-year-olds, whatever, like how he wanted Wyatt to be able to trust the world, though he hadn’t been able to himself; and he held out his fist for Wyatt to bump.

Babies, however, were different. Babies were soft and helpless and they smelled nice; they had tiny fingers and sweet blue eyes and they wore hilarious outfits that looked like little sacks. They trusted you;

“He didn’t steal Dad’s car,” Wendy said. “And could you stop acting like you give a single fuck about what happens to him? When’s the last time you even talked to him? Christ.”

She realized anew how much differently from her this kid had experienced the world. To not know your father’s fate was one thing, but to not know your father at all was another entirely.

He allowed himself to acknowledge how fucking much it hurt that she didn’t want him around. That if they could do it all over again, he’d want her to unfuck whoever his secret dad was and spare him this whole fucking existence.

No matter how much anyone else in the family accepted him, she never would, and he couldn’t make himself stop wanting her to.

I’m starting to feel a little bit crazy, you know? When you’re alone for so long that you—like, you stop being able to objectively see what’s normal and what’s not? Do you know what I mean?”

her beautiful Ivy unleashed into the outside world without a fighting chance, and it seemed so unjust, the fact that it could all be taken away like that, even when you did everything you were supposed to do.

Wendy, whose husband was currently undergoing chemo. Wendy, who’d been dealt the shittiest hand of them all. Wendy, who had lost so much, and whom Violet would always have failed, and who somehow found it in herself to be generous at this moment, though it couldn’t have been easy.

such throat-filling tenderness, the conviction that she’d been put on this earth to bolster the bulk, however insignificant, of another body? Not a baby, but her husband. Her person.

He wasn’t sure what to say. “What was her name?” “Nobody ever asks me that,” she said. “Her name was Ivy.”

“Jonah? There is nothing on this earth that would be made better by your not being around. Please set fire to that thought immediately. Run it over with a stolen car.”

Her life had always been abundantly peopled—by her doting parents, by her indulgent sisters—but she now felt accompanied in a way she never had before, by a person who was choosing to feel beholden to her instead of simply scooting up the built-in rope of familial obligation. And it was striking, how much less alone that could make you feel, because of course to be peopled at all was a high-order gift, but to find people beyond your people was nothing short of miraculous, finding a person away from home who felt like home and shifted, subsequently, the very notion of home, widening its borders.

He was aware of missing his wife, a thought that he dismissed as silly because she was, of course, in the next room.