“Then, when Gillian came along, you see…I was worried that he was so appalled at the thought of you being displaced, Abigail, that he overcompensated. That he didn’t fuss over Gillian as much as he’d fussed over you.” She looks from one to the other of us. “I’m sorry for how it all got to be. Your father and I should have realized. I think we were just both so afraid of one of you feeling neglected.”

She pauses.

“Your father adored you.” She looks at me fiercely. “Both of you. And so do I.” She clears her throat. “I don’t really know how to say this, but…this favoritism stuff, I don’t think it was ever really about love. I mean, I don’t think it was about being loved more or loved less. We just…we knew how to play to our strengths, I suppose. And we kept doing that, and told ourselves that that was enough.”

Abigail frowns, but I think some small part of me might be starting to understand what Mom means.

Because even if Dad was the favorite, I realize that my love for Mom has always been as bone-deep, as inescapable, as my love for Dad was. But Dad was just…easy. It’s like Mom said.

He was easy to love.

Maybe that’s all that favoritism really is in the end. Not about being loved more or loved less, but about what comes easy.

Dad would have stepped in front of a bus for me just as fast as he would have for Abigail, but it was Abigail’s wildness that made him feel carefree. And, maybe because that carefree feeling was what had been denied him as a child, that was the feeling he needed the most.

Meanwhile, for Mom, I was the kid who made her feel relaxed and assured, and like she had it in her to be a good mother—and I guess that was what she needed the most.

She’s right: they should have tried harder. They should have tried harder at the parts that didn’t come so easy. But they were trying. I think I can say that now: they at least were trying.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

Upstairs, Oliver turns off the TV.

“So?” He looks at me.

I flop onto the bed.

“Well, she’s divorcing him,” I say. “It’s definitely happening. And we all had a talk. A pretty big one.”

He looks at me, wondering if I’m okay. Am I? I don’t know.

I look at my husband.

“Are you happy, Ollie?” I blurt. “I mean…in life? In our marriage? All of that?”

He looks at me dubiously at first, like it might be a trick. When he sees it’s not, he’s silent for a while.