“My cake. Dad!”

“Who paid for it?”

“Technically, me,” I said, giving up and leaning back against the couch cushions. I’d already told the story of the supermarket cake run—leaving out, of course, the slow dancing by the bread aisle.

“Fine,” my dad grumbled, spearing the world’s smallest bite on the fork and handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, shaking my head as I took the bite. I looked around the room—at all of us together—and knew that I had to say something. Mike was sitting on the floor, just a little in front of me, and I nudged him with my toe. “Did you have fun?”

Mike looked back at me and smiled, his expression easy and open for once. “I did,” he said, and I was sure I could hear in his voice that he was feeling the same as I was—relaxed and happy to be together with everyone.

“See?” I said, nudging him again. “It’s not always so terrible being a Grant, is it?”

The smile slid off Mike’s face immediately. “Seriously?” he asked.

“I’m just saying,” I said, “that maybe you’d forgotten how much fun we have. I bet you’re regretting staying away so long.”

“Charlie,” Linnie said, looking over at me and widening her eyes. The feeling in the room was starting to shift, like a thermostat had just been adjusted, everything suddenly getting cooler. “Maybe now’s not the time.”

“I was just thinking,” I said quickly, feeling like I had to get this out—I wasn’t sure when I’d find a better opportunity. “That we should just all get past this thing with Mike and then things can go back to how they were, right?” I gestured around the room. “Like now.”

“Charlie, you don’t get it,” Mike said, turning around to face me.

“Of course I do,” I said, setting my fork down. I noticed J.J. and Danny making eye contact, neither of them looking happy, but I pressed on anyway. “You gave a stupid interview that you shouldn’t have and said things you didn’t mean. We can all move on now.”

Mike shook his head. “You’re missing the point,” he said. “I gave that interview because she wrecked my relationship with her comic strip. She thought it was all a joke, and she never even apologized. I meant every word I said.”

“Michael,” my mother said, sitting up in the chair.

“Are we doing this now?” Mike asked, looking from my mom to me. “Are we really going there? Linnie just got married.”

“There’s a good point,” Rodney said, his voice soothing. “Why don’t we just finish our cake and head to bed. Everyone’s tired—”

“Mom never did that,” I interjected, shaking my head at Mike.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, his eyebrows flying up. “Our lives weren’t our own. They were just fodder for her. And everything she wanted us to be, she made the Grant kids be. Everything we weren’t, she made up for in her comic strip.”

“That’s not fair,” my mother said, her face getting red as she shook her head. “I’ve never—”

“You know, you never asked us if we wanted our lives broadcast every morning to America,” Mike said, looking at our mom. “You just went ahead and did it and we never talked about whether it was a good thing—”

“So you decided to humiliate her—all of us?” J.J. asked, jumping into the fray, his arms folded across his chest.

“I’d had enough!” Mike yelled. “Our stories never got to be our own. I told her not to put it in and she did it anyway, and I was just done! I was done with all of it.”

“Why didn’t you say something then?” J.J. asked. “Instead, you just stayed away like a coward.”

I heard Linnie draw in a sharp breath, and Danny leaned forward. “Okay, guys,” he said, looking from J.J. to Mike, then back to me. “I think we should just take a second—”

“That’s really nice, J.J.” Mike said, shaking his head. “Nice for you to tell me now how you felt about it.”

“I would have told you then,” J.J. snapped, “but you weren’t here to tell, were you?”

“I haven’t been here because I can’t do this!” Mike yelled, standing up. “She wants us to be this perfect unit, whether that’s who we are or not. She doesn’t care! She sold us to America like we’re this amazing family everyone wants to be a part of.”

“But we are!” I yelled, standing up myself now. I saw Linnie and Rodney look at each other apprehensively, but I barreled on anyway. “I love being a Grant and I know how lucky I am. I’m sick of this—sick of begging you to participate in a family anyone else would kill to be a part of. And I’ll always love the strip.”

“Yeah, well, the strip is over,” Mike said, and across the room, I saw my mom flinch. “And the house is sold. So not so wonderful, after all, is it?”

“Well,” I said, feeling myself flounder a little. “Yeah, but . . .”

Mike shook his head, rolling his eyes at me. “You’re living in a fantasy,” he spat. “You’re living in a fucking newspaper comic.”

“No, I’m not.” I was yelling now, feeling tears building up somewhere behind my eyes. “Things are good here. You just haven’t been around to see it.” I sat down, feeling like I’d gotten a good last word in and wanting to punctuate this with something. I glanced over at Danny, to try and see his reaction, but he seemed to be having some kind of silent conversation with my parents, loaded looks flying between them, my mother shaking her head.

“I think . . . ,” Danny started, then let out a long breath. “Is it time?”

“Sheridan,” my mother said, her voice low and serious, warning, and I was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Let’s not do this now,” my dad said, an equally serious note in his voice as he stared hard at Danny. “Okay?”

“What’s going on?” Linnie asked. “Don’t do what now?”

“I have no idea,” J.J. said, and from Rodney’s expression, it seemed like he didn’t know either.

“It’s not the time,” my mom said, starting to gather up plates, finality in her tone, like she’d just put a period at the end of a sentence.

“Whatever it is, just tell us,” Mike said, sounding disgusted. “Can we please just tell the truth in this family, for once?” My parents exchanged a loaded look. I turned to Danny, ready for him to give me a smile, letting me know there was really nothing to worry about—but he was bent forward over his knees, clenching his hands together.

“Mom?” I asked.

“What’s going on?” J.J. asked, all his bravado gone, looking somehow younger than he had in years.

“Come on—what’s happening here?” Linnie asked, a nervous note in her voice. “Are you—is someone sick?”

“No,” my dad said immediately, and my mother shook her head. “God no, nothing like that.”

“I’m fine,” my mother said emphatically. “Your father’s fine.”

“Someone needs to tell us what’s going on!” J.J. yelled, his voice cracking on the last word.

“They’re getting a divorce,” Danny said, still hunched over his hands, his voice tired. “That’s what’s going on.”

There was silence in the room, a silence that felt heavy, like it was taking up all the air—you couldn’t even hear anyone breathe.

I looked between my mom and dad, feeling my breath caught somewhere in my chest, repeating the words no please no over and over in my head like a prayer or a mantra, something you say to keep the bad things at bay. Maybe I had heard wrong. Maybe I’d misunderstood. Maybe Danny had misunderstood because this wasn’t—this couldn’t—

“We,” my dad said, glancing over at my mom, who was staring down at the carpet, her bottom lip trembling. “This wasn’t how we wanted to do this. . . .”