Page 54 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

“You’re right.” I smile.

“Say, how about we get some drinks after work? Or sometime over the weekend?” Alexandra takes a business card out of her purse and gives it to me. “I’d love to pick your brain about this city and the company itself. You’re a Portland native, and I’m seriously considering the possibility of putting some roots down here.”

“You are?”

“I like it!” She laughs and shrugs. “It’s got a romantic side most people outside of Portland don’t quite get, but I do. This is an old city; it’s charming and full of opportunities. Everyone is always raving about the East Coast or the West Coast, about the big cities… but they forget about how bountiful places like Portland can be. I think I could be of value here.”

“Drinks sound good. Probably over the weekend. I’ll check my schedule and promise I’ll let you know,” I reply and put the card in my wallet. “Thank you.”

“No, thankyou, Christa.”

Alexandra Jones seems genuine in her connection.

Maybe she is.

I won’t find out unless I give her a chance.

16

Christa

In the wake of everything happening, I decide to take River’s advice and make another attempt to reconnect with my Aunt Mary. In hindsight, everything she ever said that made me feel uncomfortable or downright miserable in my own skin stemmed from her education and upbringing in a society that was, and in some respects still is, designed to tell us what we need to look like to please others.

I find her out in the garden late one afternoon, tending to her azaleas with a pruning shear and the same gardening apron she’s had since I was a kid.

“Hey,” I gently say as I walk up the stone path with a goodie basket hanging from one arm. “How about a peace offering?”

Aunt Mary stills and looks at me. At first, I can’t tell whether she’s about to throw the shears at my head or hug me. She rises slowly, dusting herself off, and sets the shears down. “I take it you found my favorite oatmeal cookies?”

“Cranberry and ginger, from Rosie’s Bakery,” I proudly declare. “Plus, some lovely preserves and artisanal teas. They had a greatselection of flavors to choose from.”

She smiles and motions for me to follow her inside.

Five minutes later, we’re seated at the breakfast table over tea and cookies, trying again.

“I owe you a lifetime of apologies, I suppose,” Aunt Mary says, tearing an oatmeal cookie in two, then in four pieces before eating it. “It took me a long time to realize it.”

“Are you referring to something in particular?”

“Only every comment I ever made about your weight,” she replies with a heavy sigh. “Don’t think for a second I’m not aware of my own shortcomings, Christa. I’m just really bad at owning up to them. But there comes a time and an age, I suppose. And you’re the only family I’ve got left. Instead of being happy, just happy to see you, I wasn’t very kind.” Her voice breaks.

She has no idea how much this means to me.

“I didn’t go too easy on you either the last time we met,” I say.

Aunt Mary shakes her head. “Oh, honey. I deserved way worse. In fact, I applaud your restraint.”

“I’ve heard worse over the years,” I chuckle dryly.

“You should’ve never heard anything from me,” she insists. “Christa, I really did do the best I could. But there’s something I never knew how to tell you. I wasn’t sure you’d understand. You were just a kid yourself.”

I lean forward, finding a strange sense of tranquility in her presence for the first time. It’s as if the thick wall once between us has finally crumbled. “What is it?”

“A few months before your parents died, I was diagnosed with a severe form of endometriosis,” she says. My heart breaks in the blink of an eye. “It made it virtually impossible for me to have a viable pregnancy, to have children of my own. There is also an extremely high risk of ovarian cancer. They’d already found some irregular polyps hiding in plain sight.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I made my peace with it, eventually. But I made a difficult decision then.”

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