“Lord,” Patsy yawned dramatically. “What did I ever see in him? Be careful who you have a baby with, Pru. You’re stuck with them for life.”
“I like Jimmy Roy.” She puckered her lips and Whoop touched his nose to them. She smiled, thinking of McKay seeing her do that.
“How did such a perfect kid come from that guy?” Patsy shook her head. “I’ll never know.”
“She must have gotten your genes,” Pru said dryly. She stood up with Whoop now cradled in her arms. “I’m going to bed. Are you staying up much later?”
“I have to see if Dylan picks Kelly or Brenda, don’t I?” Patsy said, stretching out on the couch.
Pru crawled, utterly exhausted, into bed. On one side of her, Annali turned and threw a leg over her, and Whoop settled himself on the other. Then Jenny nosed open the door and scrambled up on the bed, curling herself at Pru’s feet.
Thank God she’d gotten the queen-size bed. It wasn’t exactly the activity she’d imagined for it, she thought ruefully, shifting her leg to reclaim an extra half-inch of space. But she liked having all the breathing things around her.
She thought again of Jimmy Roy as a nurse-midwife. She smiled in the dark. Maybe that was exactly what Patsy needed right now: a steady pair of hands to ease her passage back into the world. She knew she was watching the worst suffering her sister had ever known. But it was also true that Annali had saved Patsy. If it hadn’t been for her, Pru was certain, Patsy would have shut herself up in that beach house, and never come out again.
THE NEXT DAY WAS THANKSGIVING. AS EVERYBODY GATHERED around the large table John had put in the middle of the Korner, Annali counted out loud the number of chairs. Jimmy Roy, delighted, said, “Peachy, you can count to six? I didn’t know that.”
“She can count to twelve,” Patsy said. “Where the fuck have you been?”
Nobody said anything. They all froze, rather ridiculously, thought Pru, in various stages of seating themselves.
“I was wondering when we would get to that,” said Jimmy Roy. He was wearing a belt with silver studs all the way around it, his hair pulled in a topknot that made him look like a samurai.
“It’s a fair question,” said Patsy, buckling Annali into her booster seat.
Pru’s mother was the first to recover, and as she eased herself into her chair, she turned to John and asked, “Have you lived in D.C. long?”
“Seven years,” John said.
Where the fuck have you been? Pru wanted to add. She was in oddly high spirits. The past two weeks had been depressing, despite her efforts to keep everybody cheerful. Sometimes she felt like shoving Patsy and Annali out the door and curling up under the covers. But having her mother and Jimmy Roy there had buoyed her. Even if Nadine seemed content to watch the proceedings with a detached air, as though she were thinking of happier times. Or perhaps she knew something Pru didn’t. Perhaps she had seen enough to know that all you had to do was sit back and wait for everyone to come to their senses. Pru hoped very much this was the case.
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Jimmy Roy said, to Patsy. Pru’s heart sank. Dumb move, she thought, as Patsy rolled her head dramatically.
“Oh, you’re here,” Patsy cried, mockingly. “Okay, it’s your turn! Here’s the kid. I’ll see you in a couple of years!”
“And where did you grow up, John?” Nadine turned her smooth face in his direction.
“New England. Maine, actually.”
“Is your family there?”
“I have two sisters, both in New Jersey. My parents died years ago.”
“Mommy,” said Annali, nervously, “where are you going?”
“I don’t know, honey. Maybe the North fucking Pole?”
Nadine issued a soft “Patsy.” As if in response, Annali’s mouth turned down and she began to cry.
Patsy threw down her fork. “Annali, hush. Jesus, I can’t even be ironic anymore.”
“I don’t want you to be ionic!” Annali sobbed.
Jimmy Roy pushed his chair away from the table. “Thanks for dinner,” he said, addressing John. “But this isn’t good. I think I should just go.”
At his words, Annali let out a howl. She began kicking and yelling. “No!” she cried. “No!” Instinctively, Jimmy Roy turned and reached for her.
“Don’t you touch her!” Patsy cried. Her voice was steely, but underneath there were unmistakable notes of panic and fear. Instantly, Annali stopped crying.
Patsy was holding Jimmy Roy with her gaze; Jimmy Roy had his hands under Annali’s armpits. He was only going to comfort Annali, but the panic in Patsy’s voice had startled everybody. Suddenly Pru realized what Patsy was afraid of, what they were all afraid of: There was very little to stop Jimmy Roy from picking up Annali and running out of the café with her. And like that, they’d be in a whole new world, a world where “state lines” and “court order” and “kidnapping” and “suspect” were part of the everyday language. Of course, Patsy could do the same. Pru saw, in that moment, what a narrow channel they had to navigate. Rocky shoals stood on either side. It would be nothing, her absolute gut instinct told her, for Patsy or Jimmy Roy to try to turn Annali against the other. Annali was the little wishbone in their Thanksgiving turkey, how easily she could snap; and how much provocation would it take to reach out and start pulling? In Annali, Patsy and Jimmy Roy had the perfect tool with which to torment each other for the rest of their lives.
Pru closed her eyes. Her bright mood vanished. How had this happened? One step further, she thought, and we’ll be throwing chairs at one another on a cable television show.
Even Annali understood that something very serious was up. She gave a loud hiccup.
Pru opened her eyes to see Jimmy Roy sitting back down. It felt like he was lowering a gun he’d been
