Page 64 of The Kitchen Contract

My breathing is ragged as I take in the group of people in my kitchen, watching me with fading smiles. The only person who doesn’t seem to realize that I’m not myself is Olivia, who runs to me and throws her arms around my waist.

“Happy birthday, Uncle Alex! We made you a surprise party!”

I wrap one arm around her shoulders and return her embrace, as surprised by the burning behind my eyes as I was by my family jumping out at me. “Thanks, Ollie.”

I blink a few times and force a smile at the rest of my family. “A party, huh? You shouldn’t have.”

You really, really shouldn’t have.

Maddy is the first to recover, pasting on a smile that says she knows something is up but the show must go on. “Olivia, let Uncle Alex go change out of his work clothes and then we’ll have plenty of time to eat and give him his presents.”

Olivia runs back to her mother, and a quiet hum of conversation picks up as the rest of the family turns back to whatever celebration prep was still outstanding before I arrived. I head down the hall to my room, only a bit surprised to see Grant walking behind me from the corner of my eye.

“Oh look, my stalker again,” I say, not even trying to hide my irritation. “This is getting to be a disturbing habit of yours.” I step inside my bedroom, and he follows me. “Dude, a little privacy?”

Grant snorts. “Since when do you care about privacy?” He crosses his arms and plants himself on the end of my bed. “What’s wrong? And where’s Nora? She was supposed to be here tonight.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not coming.” I strip my shirt off rather than elaborate and toss it in the general direction of the laundry hamper. I do the same with my dress pants, because Grant’s right, I couldn’t care less if he sees me in my boxer shorts. I just don’t want to talk.

“Why isn’t she coming? What did you do?”

“Why do you assume it’s something I did?” I shove my legs forcefully into a pair of cargo shorts.

Grant shrugs. “Just a hunch.”

“Your hunch is wrong. We broke up, but it’s because of what she did, not because I wanted to.”

“What did she do?”

“What is this, Jeopardy? I don’t want to talk about it, and I’m not answering any more questions.” I pull on a clean t-shirt and clamp my mouth shut, my jaw clenched tight.

Grant holds up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Sorry for trying to help.”

I almost feel a little bit bad for shutting Grant out, but not enough to change my position. There will be time for wallowing and self-castigation later. Right now, I need to grit my teeth and grin through this party. I’m not a miserable enough wretch to completely ignore the effort that my family went to in order to throw me a birthday celebration, so I’m going to have a good time if it kills me.

When Grant and I emerge, Annie, Maddy, and Chris eye me warily. The kids are nowhere to be seen, so I assume they’ve already gone out back.

“Have you heard from Nora?” Maddy asks, shifting Ileigh from one hip to the other. “She said she’d be here, but I can’t get ahold of her and I’m getting worried.”

I sigh and decide right then that it will be better to get it out in the open and be done with it than to try to hide the truth. “Nora and I broke up, so I assume that’s why she isn’t here and is ghosting you.” I hold up my hand when Maddy opens her mouth to comment. “I don’t want to talk about it, though. My fondest birthday wish is for us to pretend like everything is fine and just not talk about anything to do with Nora.”

Maddy exchanges a look with Grant and draws herself up straight. “Okay. We can do that.” I wait for her to tack on a “for now”, but it doesn’t come. Instead, she turns to Chris and hands over Ileigh so she can grab a platter of seasoned steaks from the counter.

“Come on.” She gestures toward the door with her head. “Help me cook this birthday beef.”

I hold the door for her and walk outside to find the patio draped with streamers and dotted with bundles of helium balloons. The folding table I bought for the last gathering is set up with drinks, side dishes, and a huge chocolate cake with raspberries dotting the top. Everything looks so festive and fun. It should cheer me up, so I smile.

“This looks great, Maddy. Thanks for doing all this.”

“You’re my brother,” she says simply like that explains everything. “Besides, I had plenty of help from Annie and Nor—” She presses her lips together in an unhappy line. “The grill should already be hot, so these should be ready in no time.”

We both ignore her near slip and focus on arranging the meat on the sizzling-hot surface of my grill as the rest of the family gathers outside. I pour a glass of lemonade and sink into a chair. Thankfully, everyone seems to be taking my request to overlook Nora’s absence seriously, and I listen to them chat about day-to-day things, happy to get lost in their lives and ignore mine for as long as I can.

When I first got home and realized what was happening, I wasn’t thrilled that the solitary evening I had planned wouldn’t come to pass. But I’ve since realized that this is really the best thing that could have happened because it’s much harder to second-guess your life decisions with a house full of people.

Distraction is the greatest birthday gift ever.

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