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She held out her right hand and they shook.
“Nice to meet you. Can I get you two a drink?”
“I’m fine,” Ella said, reaching for her Shirley Temple. “I’m good.” She
held it up with her left hand, exposing the enormous fuck you on her finger.
Byron raised an eyebrow, then turned to me. “Logan. Anything for
you?”
“I’m fine, I—”
“Oh, honey!” my mother cried, pushing past Byron with hands shaky
from early stage Parkinson’s to kiss me. “Your father was looking for you.”
She went right to Ella. “I’m Doreen Crowne.”
“Ella Papillion.” Their shake took four hands. Mom wasn’t going to
miss the ring. “So nice to meet you.”
Then Dad was there, with my brother Liam and Uncle Rodney. Ella
managed the introductions gracefully, laughing at the good-natured teasing
we flung around. She and I stood close together, not knowing how much
pretending was required until Lyric saw the ring.
“Oh my God, Logan,” Lyric cried in a mixture of ecstasy and sisterly
annoyance. “Is this it?”
“Is what it?”
She took Ella’s left hand and held it up. “Duh.”
“Lyric,” Dad said in a soothing tone, as if reminding a child to use her
inside voice before addressing Ella. “There was this rumor that Logan
bought a ring. Not that ring.”
Ella looked at me and tilted her head toward my family, lips tight
because it was my job to break the news.
“She added two and two and got five again,” Byron said while Ella’s
eyes were locked on mine.
“At least he’d get married before he had a baby,” Lyric retorted.
“Okay, boomer,” Byron shot back even though my sister was in her
twenties.
“Geriatric memeing gives me sadz.”
This was going to devolve into a cage match right in front of Ella, who
—up until lunch—was trapped by a stepfamily whose cruelty wasn’t as
good-natured.
“It’s a lovely ring,” my mother said.
Dad was starting to separate from the pack to talk to Maurice. Guests
were coming up the stairs and soon it would be too late to tell the people