’d made it nine-tenths of the way to the catastrophe-in-waiting that was my mom and Greer when I bumped into Sadie-Grace.

“This heat, I swear,” Greer was complaining to a group of women nearby. “Never have an August baby.”

As tempting as it was to call out Greer’s performance for exactly what it was, years of being my mom’s wingman, confidante, backup, and babysitter told me that her doing the same thing—in public—had the potential to blow up in all of our
faces.

“Excuse me,” I told Sadie-Grace. I went to move past her, but she sidestepped and blocked me.

“No.”

I tried to make sense of that. “What?”

“I said no,” Sadie-Grace said apologetically. “I have to say no. Not just to you. To everything. I have to say no to everything anyone asks from me, all day. Because.”

She put so much emphasis on that last word that I finally connected the dots. “Because that’s your White Glove challenge?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.” Sadie-Grace was serious as a funeral. “But maybe, if you want me to get out of your way, you should ask me not to step aside?”

“Whatever you do, don’t step aside.”

Once she’d cleared the way, I made my way to where Greer had been standing a moment before. Neither she nor my mother was immediately visible. Eventually, I spotted them just outside the tent, back and away from the foot traffic.

“I don’t hate you, Greer.” I was wired to hear my mom’s voice above others, to be able to pick it out of a crowd. “If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have Sawyer. So rest assured, I’m not going to burst your little bubble with respect to your current deception.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Ellie.” Before my mom could respond, Greer caught sight of me and nodded in my direction.

My mom turned. She saw me, then let her gaze travel farther into the tent, to Sadie-Grace. “All I’m saying, friend, is that maybe you’re so set on making life go your way that you’re missing out on the ways that it already has.”

I’d wondered how hungover my mom was. The answer was apparently philosophically hungover, which generally hovered around the midpoint of the scale.

Without responding to my mom’s advice, Greer went to make her exit. I watched her go. Do you know that your husband lost a child when he lost his first wife? I thought. Would it make any kind of difference to you if you did?

Given that she was eight months into this deception, I doubted it.

“She’s a piece of work,” my mom declared, coming to stand beside me. “Happy Fourth of July, baby.”

She hesitated when she called me baby, like she wasn’t sure she was still allowed to call me that. The hesitation hit me harder than any attempt she’d made to mend things between us.

“Happy Fourth of July,” I returned. I might have left it there, but I realized, suddenly, that I knew something that she didn’t know.

Something that she probably should know.

“Mom,” I started. “Don’t do anything rash or stupid when I tell you what I’m about to tell you. Aunt Olivia? She knows.”