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  As soon as the ink was signed on the divorce papers, Roger moved up to Boston and into a mini-mansion, leaving Meredith to wonder if he’d been hiding money under their mattress all those years. She has visited the new house occasionally, usually when dropping off the kids for a month’s vacation over the summers, but once the twins got their drivers’ licenses, they were free to drive up to Boston on their own, trimming Meredith’s interactions with Roger to a handful a year. Then both kids decided to apply to colleges only in the Boston area—Northeastern, BC, Harvard, Babson, Bolton—and she couldn’t help but feel that they’d chosen their father over her. Why didn’t they want to stay closer to home, her home, she wondered? The distance, the choice, stung. But when ultimately they both settled on Bolton, a quaint little campus on a hillside outside Cambridge (which also happens to be Meredith’s alma mater), she was pleased.

  Meredith, of course, could hardly pick up and move after the divorce. At the time, the twins were twelve and had launched themselves into the hormone-addled world of middle school. She thought it important for them to keep the same circle of friends, especially since their own family had recently imploded into a thousand tiny bits. As ever, Roger’s timing had been impeccable. Just when she was getting back on her feet, having taken a job in the NICU at New Haven Children’s Hospital, Roger announced that he’d fallen in love. With someone else. Meredith can still conjure up the smell of pancakes from that morning, the sound of the television blaring Saturday morning cartoons from the family room.

  In the wee hours of the night, while she tended to tiny premature babies at the hospital and her mom slept over with the kids, she would counsel herself that there were worse things than a husband’s leaving you. Like being swallowed up by a sinkhole. Or contracting the Ebola virus. How many nights had she promised herself that she’d sworn off men, for good?

  But then, at a fund-raising event for the hospital, she bumped into Joel, standing in front of the same silent auction item as she (tickets to see a show at the Shubert), and before she knew it, he was switching out his place card so that he could join her table. A few hours of conversation in and she’d thought, Oh, with a glint of surprise. I get it. Here’s the man I was supposed to marry.

  She glances at Joel again, his soft, kind eyes trained on the road. Unlike her ex-husband, Joel falls squarely into the realm of good, trustworthy men, a guy who recycles (without being overly zealous about it) and who works as a counselor for troubled youth at a small high school outside New Haven. He comes so well versed in adolescent angst that sometimes Meredith thinks she must have looked him up in a catalog and special-ordered him for her kids. Joel understands teenagers’ dark sides in a way that eludes her, so much so that she calls him the Teenager Whisperer. Dawn liked Joel almost immediately, and even Cody (ever protective of his dad) eventually warmed to his stepdad’s goofy humor and bear hugs. Joel has cheered just as loudly as all the other dads on the sidelines of Cody’s football games and Dawn’s cross-country meets. In her second husband, Meredith has finally gotten what she deserves—a marriage that provides solace, like a pair of comfy, thick socks on a cold winter night.

  From her pocketbook, she pulls out the creased agenda for graduation weekend, which she printed out at home earlier this morning. When she opens the folded-over page, Roger and Lily’s formal invitation for Saturday’s party falls into her lap, and she stuffs the shimmery gold-trimmed card back into her bag before reading from the graduation schedule:

  Please join us for cocktails and a buffet dinner at

  your Graduate’s dorm.

  Thursday Evening, 5:30–9:00 p.m.

  Dressy casual attire

  She had been puzzled by the request for “dressy casual.” What did it mean, exactly? Certainly not formal wear, but what then? A summer dress? A linen suit? Or was that too matronly? She wondered if all the other moms would be wearing skinny jeans with a flowy top. She texted Dawn for advice, but her daughter had been of little help. Wear whatever you’re comfortable in! I’m wearing a sundress. So Meredith settled on the pencil skirt, pale pink, and a summery white blouse. She hopes it suggests elegance with a hint of youthfulness.

  At least tonight, she doesn’t have to worry about being upstaged by Lily.

  When she had lunch with her friend Steph the other day at the mall, Steph had laughed at her fashion deliberations. “You’ll be fine. Whatever you wear, you’ll be Cody and Dawn’s beaming mother.” Steph leaned back in her seat and grinned. “Can you believe our kids are actually graduating? Finally.” She has a son the same age, about to graduate from Brown. “Now we’ll be free!” She clinked her wineglass to Meredith’s, then leaned in and whispered, “Tell me the truth. Aren’t you elated? I’m so happy they’re done, I could do a little dance.” And, in fact, she stood up right there, in California Pizza Kitchen, and spun herself around in a circle. Meredith had laughed along with her.

  Yes, she is pleased that the kids have made it through. But elated? No, elated isn’t the word she would choose. Happy, definitely proud, relieved maybe. And a little sad. Because commencement is such a funny word, isn’t it, when what they’re really celebrating is an end, a closing of the door on her kids’ adolescence? An acknowledgment that her work as a mom is more or less finished. She spent so many years worrying that the divorce had screwed up the twins permanently, but Dawn and Cody had proved her wrong. They’d braided together, shucked off their therapy sessions like an old, heavy overcoat, and helped each other through instead. A twin thing, Dawn had explained, sounding both impossibly young and wise at twelve. You don’t have to pay for some strange doctor to listen to us. Cody and I have each other for that. And for once, Meredith had listened, grateful that her kids had each other.

  When they were young, she used to fantasize about lazy days when she’d no longer be needed for a carpool, wouldn’t have to wheedle them into doing their chores or their homework. Grandmothers at the supermarket would tell her to “enjoy every minute” because childhood zooms by so quickly, but their admonishments only made her skin prickle with irritation. “Before you know it, you’ll be an empty nester,” they’d say, a knowing gleam in their eye, and Meredith would think, You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s decades away! I’m so tired! What I would give for an empty nest for only a few hours.

  Except here she is now, her birds hovering on the edge. And all she can seem to focus on is how far away the ground is. For her babies and herself.

  She slips the agenda back into her bag and switches on the radio to a jazz station, a Dizzy Gillespie trumpet extravaganza, and drums her fingers to the beat. Commencement, she thinks again. A new beginning. A fresh start for them all. Is it too much to hope for? Probably. But it’s worth a shot. Considered in the right light, this graduation is practically a baptism—a sweeping away of sins past. Meredith will try her level best to see beyond them and, at least for the weekend, anticipate all that might be. In a good way.

  And if she has to wring a particular swan’s neck to keep things on course?

  Well, so be it.

  * * *

  As he guides their beat-up Subaru toward Boston, Joel watches his wife from the corner of his eye when she removes the weekend’s agenda from her purse, puts it back, then takes it out again. Joel is in love with Meredith, but that doesn’t mean that everything she asks him to do comes easily. Of course, he wants to be there for the kids this weekend—he loves them like his own, thinks of them as his own ever since he married Meredith seven years ago. Watching their faces light up on stage when they get their diplomas? He wouldn’t miss it for the world. But he also understands that along with the celebration comes a tangle of emotions for his wife, which she is clearly still sifting through.

  If you ask him, Meredith is a bit of a wreck.

  Joel so wants to guide her through the next few days, but the truth is that he’s averse to large social gatherings of the hoity-toity type (he’s much better with a su
icidal teen one-on-one). The thought of an extended weekend of events where he has to make small talk with strangers was enough to send him out the door at six this morning to pump out three miles and shake off the jitters (no easy feat for his two-hundred-pound frame). Last night, Meredith even promised him that there would be pockets of time when they could slip away from the planned activities on campus and sneak back to the hotel to lounge by the pool. Where they could gossip about everyone to their hearts’ content. When she’d shared her goals for the weekend, Joel joked, You’re such a planner, you’d probably jot down a to-do list right before a tornado hit. But what he didn’t tell her was that he’d fashioned his own refrain for the weekend for whoever might be listening: please grant me strength. Grant me patience. Above all, grant me a sense of humor.

  Because he wants everyone to have a fantastic weekend. The stuff of memory books. All the family, the whole lot of them, will be together, and Joel can’t recall the last time that happened. Maybe at the twins’ high school graduation four years ago? This weekend, Roger’s brother, Georgie, will be flying in from London. And Roger’s parents—dad, Harry, and mom, Edith—are driving down from Maine. Edith is a female facsimile of her son—thin, uptight, with an air about her that jangles with old money. And Harry always looks as if he’d rather be anywhere else than at another family event. Joel and Meredith have laughed about it. Are they really so difficult to endure? Maybe it’s Harry’s own son, Roger, who drives him nuts.

  Since he and Meredith are only children themselves, they will be supplying no aunts or uncles for the occasion. And with Meredith’s dad gone and Joel’s parents in an assisted living facility down in Florida, the gathering will be decidedly lopsided. He and Meredith will be the odd couple out along with Meredith’s mom, Carol, as their sidekick. Joel feels a small chuckle escape from somewhere deep inside his throat. The Odd Couple sounds about right. Joel can play Felix to Meredith’s Oscar while Carol provides commentary from the peanut gallery.

  “What’s so funny?” Meredith asks, her eyebrows knitting into tiny boomerangs.

  He shakes his head, reaches over to squeeze her hand. “Nothing.”

  “The weekend is going to be great. Just like you said.”

  “Of course it is.” Joel doesn’t dare look her way, in case she calls him out on the fact that he said this yesterday with a scissor of sarcasm. He understands that their family embodies the “new” American household, which is to say, they are a stepfamily or a blended family—a constellation so common these days, yet it still takes him by surprise that he has ended up a part of one, as if he deplaned in the wrong city and should be hurrying along to the next gate. By no means did he instigate the “stepness” of his family (thanks to good old Roger for that), but Joel has placed his foot firmly in the center of this particular constellation, rearranging a few stars so that he, too, might fit.

  He was surprised when Meredith appeared interested in him at the fund-raiser, even more shocked when, a few months later, she told him that she thought she was falling in love. Women like Meredith didn’t typically fall for beefy guys like Joel, at least not back in college. But she explained that the honeymoon of lusting after “bad boys” ended once you’d been married to one for fifteen years. Joel understands that the traits that once made him trusty “friend” material in college now count as admirable husband qualities, things like integrity, good listening skills, and a certain physical heft that a surprising number of women seem to find reassuring.

  “I’m done with guys like Roger,” Meredith explained on their first real date at a small neighborhood Italian restaurant, two bowls of linguine steaming in front of them. “I want steady and true in a man.” She shrugged. “You know, like a pickup truck. No more Ferraris for me.”

  Joel had laughed, uncertain if he’d just been complimented or insulted. Joel is no Ferrari, for sure, but having gotten to know Roger over the years, he’s not sure Meredith’s ex is, either. Flashy and quick, yes, but Roger strikes him as all paint and gloss, without much substance under the hood.

  “Geez!” A navy blue Mercedes suddenly veers into their lane, and Joel lays on the horn. “Why is it that the closer we get to Boston, the crazier the drivers get?”

  Meredith makes a pfft sound. “You say that like you’re surprised.”

  “Not surprised. Annoyed.”

  Joel loathes Boston drivers, all of whom drive as if passing their drivers’ tests merely required signing in on exam day. If it weren’t for the kids, he would avoid the city altogether. For Joel, the cozy enclaves of New Haven move at about the right speed. But that’s what kids are for, right? To make you push your boundaries, try new things.

  Joel thinks back to when he first met Dawn and Cody, right around the same time he’d abandoned the thought of ever becoming a husband or a dad (love hadn’t really knocked on his door since high school, despite various ill-advised ventures into online dating). But suddenly, there were two kids peering up at him with huge, expectant eyes. Cody especially. One morning when Joel was trying to sneak out of the house before the kids woke, twelve-year-old Cody stepped out of the bathroom. He eyed Joel up and down, as if trying to decide if he were an intruder or a handyman there to fix the faucet.

  “Hey, buddy.” Joel feigned nonchalance. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Peeing. Did you sleep over in my mom’s bed?”

  Kids were nothing if not direct. Joel weighed how best to answer, but he’d found that telling the truth was usually the best tack with kids. “Yeah, I was just heading out.”

  “Why don’t you stay for breakfast?” Cody asked. “I’m really good at making French toast.” And with that simple invitation, Joel had slipped into their mornings, a big, happy mutt who had padded under their kitchen table and never left.

  Kids are Joel’s soft spot, always have been. All those insecurities they try to hide, the walls they put up, when really adults are as scared as they are, maybe about different things, but still scared. Grown-ups just don’t let on. Getting a kid to open up makes Joel’s heart pump like nothing else. He enjoys helping his students slay their dragons, talking them through their lairs, one careful step at a time.

  Over the years, he has gotten to do a little of this for Dawn and Cody, even though their dragons constitute more of the garden-variety: stress over tests or a grade-A bastard boyfriend who jilted Dawn at prom; Cody getting caught downing beers in the back of the school during a basketball game (a serious enough infraction to warrant a three-game suspension from the football team next season, but pretty typical stuff in Joel’s estimation). Yep, Joel has witnessed plenty worse—kids sky-high on heroin; teens beaten at home, who try to hide their bruises under sweatshirts or makeup; the girls who starve themselves down to ninety pounds and still call themselves fat. He has had the bad luck of counseling a few suicidal kids in his fifteen years as guidance counselor at Washington High, and it has added a couple of layers of extra skin to his bulk, for sure.

  But even though he can handle the occasional wayward teenager, no one prepared him for the fact that becoming a stepdad also meant showing up for a whole host of gatherings with the ex’s family. Events like first communions, Christmas, Thanksgiving, confirmations, birthday parties, graduations and, he supposes one day, weddings. Sure, the divorce agreement stipulates division of time over the holidays and summers, but it hardly offers a blueprint for stress-free gatherings on the less formal occasions.

  Joel thinks someone should write a how-to manual, complete with instructional dialogue, along the lines of, “Good to see you, Roger. How’s work going?” or “Gosh, this shrimp cocktail is tasty, isn’t it?” Blasé comments to skate by potential confrontation while also throwing open a conversational window. Talk to sidestep an awkward missed child support payment or a previously terse email exchange. Maybe in his retirement years, Joel will get around to writing it, A Guide to Celebrations for Step and Blended Families. Nah, that sounds too bland, too
technical. Maybe I Wish I Didn’t Have to Be Here.

  Splitting parenting duties with Roger over the years has been like playing an involved Jenga game, one whereby you have to determine which block can be removed without upending the whole order. Such as who would white-knuckle the dashboard when the kids practiced for their drivers’ licenses (Joel and Meredith), or which parent could get a better deal on a car for the kids (Joel was happy to cede that one to Roger, who’d bought Cody and Dawn separate rides, used Honda Civics), or who should be in charge of touring colleges with the kids (they’d split that one more or less evenly with Roger, based mainly on geography). And then there was The Year That Shall Not Be Mentioned, the kids’ junior year in high school, when the twins (really, Dawn) had decided they wanted to try living with their dad full time up in Boston. It lasted only ten months, but it almost killed Meredith.

  Although he has tried to erase from memory that painful year when his wife morphed into a different person, it won’t quite go away. Meredith would come home from the NICU, change into her sweats and pour herself a cocktail before bingeing on reality TV, as if to remind herself that other people were enduring much worse. On the weekends, she’d drive up to Boston for casual “check-ins” on the kids, though they struck Joel more as adventures in stalking. About half an hour before arriving, she’d phone the twins to say she was in the area and ask if she could drop something by the house. A pair of Dawn’s sandals that she might want? A tin of Cody’s favorite peanut butter cookies?

  Her transparent attempts to wedge herself back into the kids’ lives while they lived with Roger had been heartbreaking to watch, and so when the twins decided to return home to New Haven the following summer, Joel had breathed a sigh of relief. Dawn proclaimed she was “so done with those snobby girls” at the private school Roger had enrolled them in, and Cody agreed it was “lame.” As glad as Joel was to have them back home for their senior year, part of him wanted to pull them aside and shake them, ask if they had the faintest idea of the hell they’d put their mother through.