Page 54 of His Vivacious Angel
“Why?” Brady asks loudly, making several other anxious families waiting nearby look our way.
“Leave it alone,” Mom says.
“Why?” Brady asks again, doing his best not to cry, with Bailey’s arm around him.
Mom groans. “Please, Brady, not now.”
“But moooooom,” he whines, “I wanna know why!”
“I can’t,” she says with a pained grimace.
My sisters and I cut our eyes to each other.
“Does this have something to do with ‘pie’?” Bailey asks, making air quotes with her fingers.
“Yes,” Mom says miserably. “Now, will you drop it?”
Shayla mimes zipping her mouth shut.
“I shouldn’t have asked,” Bailey mumbles, pressing her fingertips to her lips, like she’s going to be sick.
“What about pie?” Brady asks, growing more frustrated.
“Come on, kid,” Isaiah says, standing and pulling Brady away. “Let’s find the gift shop. Hopefully they’ll have some T-shirts for sale.”
Brady digs his heels in. “But I wanna know how come eating Mom’s pie gave Dad a heart attack! She didn’t even bring any to the party!”
“Oh god,” Mom wails, her shoulders shaking as she beginscrying harder, her fingers turning white as she tightens the quilt around herself.
Isaiah places a hand on Brady’s back with a sigh, pushing him out of the room. “You’ll find out when you’re older, though you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“I don’t get it,” Forest whispers in my ear. “Sherman said Miranda makes all her pies sugar, dairy, and gluten-free, now.”
My stomach churns, wishing I didn’t “get it” either, but the walls are paper-thin at our house. I turn my face into Forest’s, infinitely grateful he’s here, lending me his strength as mine flags. Dropping my voice lower so Mom won’t hear me, I tell him, “It’s a euphemism for eating Mom’s…you know.”
“Her—oh, wow, yeah, okay.” He clears his throat. “Now it makes sense, what Sherman said about how her ‘homemade pies’ hooked him. He wasn’t talking about her baking expertise.”
“Oh, no, that too. They’ve got some freaky food kink.” If anyone would understand and not judge, it’s him.
“Oh god, Autumn, please! I can still hear you!” Mom shouts.
“Sorry!” Forest and I squeak, since this was definitely the wrong time to explain it to him. “Jinx,” I whisper, squirming to get more comfortable, and he tightens his arms wrapped around my waist. It’s how I wish he could have held me at the party, under much different circumstances.
Shayla snorts, then coughs to hide her laugh.
“It’s not funny,” Mom says, shooting Shayla a scathingmom glare.“Your father could have died!”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Shayla says with an apologetic dip of her brows, rubbing Mom’s back.
But then I stupidly say the last thing anyone should at a time like this: “At least you didn’t record it and accidentally send the video to our group chat.”
“I told you I’d cut you if you ever brought that up again!”Bailey reaches down and across, likely intending to snatch my hair out by the roots. I instinctively duck and cover my head.
“What video?” Forest asks, twisting protectively around me. He slips a hand under my hoodie, resting it lightly on my lower belly, and no wonder, his fingers are freezing.
I lift my hoodie so he can place both hands on my stomach quickly, then flatten my hands over his to warm them up with my body heat. “Bailey and Isaiah are real freaks, too, who once sent our family group chat a video of them fucking in the bathtub. She calls him ‘Papi’.”
“Autumn!” Bailey screeches with red splotches blooming on her cheeks and neck.
