The Thanksgiving table was a perfect Quinn Barrett production, from start to finish. The china was a hundred and fifty years old and handed down from Stuart’s mother at their wedding (she had several heirloom china sets handed down through her family, so she wouldn’t miss this particular Wedgwood pattern, or so she often told Quinn). The table runner was reproduction lace, in a Belgian pattern from the late 1700s. The centerpieces were a long row of seasonal plants and flowers in thematic robust colors but varying heights, allowing the eye to travel. Quinn had made the napkin rings with Hamilton out of card paper by tracing turkey cookie cutters, and they added a touch of whimsy. The candles were hand-dipped, and she had found a shop that made their own dyed cement candleholders, a splash of cutting edge to the traditional beauty of the set table.
Martha Stewart would cry if she saw this table, Quinn thought. She would beg to include it in the magazine’s pages and ask Quinn for tips on how to put together the look.
Meanwhile, the kitchen was a wreck. Pots and pans caked in grease. Dirty dishes everywhere. But that didn’t matter. She would set to cleaning that once Ham went to bed. She couldn’t leave it all for Gina, their newly hired housekeeper, who would be coming in tomorrow. She was the same age as Alba with the same grandmotherly charm—and best of all, Ham had taken to Gina with the same grand-nephew type vibe of reverence and adoration.
But she’d started just that week and didn’t have the hang of everything yet.
Quinn could hear Hamilton and Stuart in his playroom, just off the dining room. Stuart was in there with him. Deep laughter punctuated Ham’s boyish giggles.
Quinn’s mother was due to arrive any minute, loud and garish and interrupting everything. Thank goodness she was due to return to her Florida condo to get warm and pretend she was a painter in pastel colors. Or take up quilting, or tropical gardening, or alligator rearing—whatever would hold her attention for a few months. And Stuart’s parents would not be back in the States until they grew bored along the south coast of France, usually sometime around Christmas. So, for this brief moment, everything was perfect—as well as being picture perfect.
Instagram perfect.
Quinn had her phone raised and was choosing her format before she remembered that her Instagram was shut down, as well as her Facebook, and every other social media account she had. Sadly, she lowered the phone. It had been three and a half weeks without checking in. Without browsing the internet. Without knowing what all of her friends and family and colleagues were saying about her.
Three and a half weeks since her life had changed forever.
And to be quite honest, those three and a half weeks hadn’t been so bad. Like with any crash diet, the first week or so was absolutely miserable—the stares, the whispers, the in-person gossip that is so much worse than anything the internet could ever do to you—but she was used to it now. And then of course, there were all her responsibilities to fill her time.
Yes, true, she was no longer working on the Little Wonders Parent Association, and she was sidelined from all of her major projects at Crabbe and Co., but in a way, it was a blessing. Because without having to maintain a split focus (which she was absolutely capable of, and would have executed everything perfectly on all fronts), she would be able to execute what had been left on her plate even MORE perfectly.
And the first of those things was the Greater New England Children’s Hospital Charity Ball.
She was determined that this was going to be the charity ball to end all balls. The very basics of the planning had already been in place—indeed, they’d been in the works since last year’s charity ball. Now, she was determined to bring the charity ball into this decade and was spending Crabbe and Co.’s budget accordingly. Her invoices for red velvet alone would give Jeremy a heart attack.
But it was necessary. It would be her masterpiece. Her calling card back to the world. And once the Martha Stewart feature on the now finished Beacon Hill house came out, she would be completely redeemed—and the video all but forgotten.
Yes, redemption was within her grasp.
The second thing that Quinn decided to laser-focus on—which was really first in her mind and heart—was Hamilton.
She had been neglectful. She had not been the awesome parent she knew herself to be. Because if she was an awesome parent, surely her son would be completely 100 percent potty trained by now. So, she determined to redouble her efforts.
So far, she had spent at least four straight Parcels—a full hour—every day after work reading potty books to him, talking to him about how to identify the heavy feeling in his bladder, going over basic gastrointestinal anatomy, and making up songs to be sung to the tune of the infernal earworm “Baby Shark”:
When you feel, do do do do do do
That you need, do do do do do do
To go pee, do do do do do do
Go Potty!
The fact that “feel” “need” and “pee” did not technically rhyme irked Quinn greatly.
Her goal was to have him completely accident free by the time he crossed the stage to sing “We Gather Together” dressed as a Pilgrim in the Thanksgiving Pageant.
Which, he had been! For three whole weeks! Except for when he took the stage, there was that telltale wet spot on the front of his costume, and Quinn could feel, next to her, Stuart’s jaw tightening.
It was at this inopportune time that she spied Shanna and Jamie across the aisle. Shanna kept her gaze forward, but Jamie . . . Jamie met her eye and gave her a friendly little wave. She ached to return it . . . but couldn’t.
Excepting that small moment, the whole week before Thanksgiving had been blissful. Like a family vacation. It was just the three of them. Stuart only left the house to go to his spin class in the city. And when he came back it was to Hamilton, who practically glowed under his father’s attention. When it began to snow, Stuart rushed out to the store—an hour later, he came home with a plastic disc sled. He and Ham spent hours going up and down the hill behind the house, coming in with pink noses. He did that several times—running out to the store and coming home with something that lit Ham’s eyes up like Disney World.
During the week, Ham went to school Monday through Wednesday . . . and Quinn decided that she could easily place her orders for the charity ball from her home office. So she and Stuart had spent luxurious, stolen hours together.
It was exactly what she needed. What they needed.
And it had led to this perfect moment. Ham and Stuart in the playroom, playing. And Quinn admiring her handiwork, setting and decorating the table. Pots bubbling away. Before the guests arrived.
Why shouldn’t she mark this perfect moment?
No reason she couldn’t take a picture. Just a picture, to save the moment for herself. Not every picture she posted went on social media.
She moved around the table, trying to find the perfect angle.
Oh, but after a few clicks, she knew this was just so beautiful—the well-dressed table in the focused foreground, the father and son very fuzzy in the background playing together—it was crying out to be seen!
What if?
Her Instagram hadn’t been deleted all the way from her phone. She had merely disabled it and could easily reactivate it. With trembling fingers, she went into the app.
Before disabling, she’d deleted every single post that featured Ham (or spaceships)—keeping it entirely design oriented. So there was no “parenting” post to take the brunt of the bile. And she’d always had blocks active on her phone, hiding the comments that were offensive, or violated Instagram’s terms of use. But that was apparently so easily circumnavigated. Also, she blocked all commenters that weren’t mutual “friends.” But then people would tag her and just rag on her that way, so they knew she saw it in their feeds, if not on hers. So she logged on, trepidatious.
The first thing she did was search her name. And then searched the “Halloween Mom” video. And much to her surprise, she didn’t find anything new. Nothing had been posted about it, or, really, her, that she hadn’t seen before.
Maybe, just maybe, it had faded away completely. Or at least enough that she could post one Thanksgiving table and not make any waves.
She loaded the picture up. She wrote a quick description. The wonderful calm before the storm. Then she immediately deleted it. Surely some snarker would comment, “I hope *you’re* keeping calm!” Or, “Just don’t storm all over the table like you did your kid’s Halloween costume, LOL.”
In the end, she decided on something very simple.
This year’s table. #thankful
Her thumb hovered over the post button. She closed her eyes.
And when she opened them, the picture was right there, on her feed.
Her breath froze in her lungs. She couldn’t move. She didn’t even blink, as she watched her phone.
For what felt like hours. It burned in her hand. And then, it happened.
A comment notification.
“Love it!” from an interior designer she knew from conferences.
Then a like popped up. And another.
Nothing extreme, nothing callous or mean. Just . . . people appreciating her perfect table.
Quinn’s entire body relaxed.
Ham called out to her from the playroom doorway. He was wearing his special lab coat that she’d had monogrammed with his name, and his green plastic stethoscope. “Mommy! Do you have an ouchy?”
She put the phone in her pocket, and moved briskly out of the dining room. “Oh yes, my, erm . . . elbow has a boo-boo, Dr. Hamilton. Can you help me?”
Stuart and Hamilton smiled up at her as she entered the room.
Yes, maybe they had finally, finally come out on the other side.