I didn’t have time to process that before one of Brian’s friends commented on the photo: Wow. New bae? That was fast! When three people “liked” that person’s comment, I just about lost it. When I thought about how I just kissed the person who posted this photo, I actually lost it. I uploaded a vague, emotional, messy monologue to my Facebook page warning people to mind their own business and back off from mine. Post: public. Comments: disabled. Spell-check: forgotten.

It felt good at first. But then thirty minutes later, I just felt crazy and broken. I realized the only way to combat the rumors was to stop showing my cards altogether and distancing myself from the source of them. So I deleted my post, untagged myself from the selfie, and unfollowed Brian, tightening my privacy settings like a belt.

The unofficial life lesson from “Picture-Gate” was to keep things to myself. Which makes me question, even five years later, if I should really be this okay with casually hanging out with the guy who unearthed all of that?

Chapter 15

After Monica leaves, I determine now is the time to clue my mother in about both of last week’s deliveries: the matzo and the man. She has Facebook, and if Monica has already seen the newest Brian post, then so has The Jeaner. I’d love to get ahead of what I know will turn out to be twenty questions.

It’s a day earlier than our standing Sunday morning appointment, but my mom wastes no time picking up for me, her favorite (only) child.

“Hi, honey. Howareya?” she says, nasally as ever.

“Hi, Mom. I’m good. The matzo came. Thanks so much for sending it. I’ve already had half a box.”

“Save some for the soup. I tell ya, I thought for sure those dummkopfs at the post service would lose it in the mail.” When Jean Rosen throws out the German word for idiot, she means business.

“Well, no worries because it arrived and it’s just as good as I remember it. But, hey, listen. I’ve got to tell you something. Your matzo wasn’t the only thing to get delivered to me this week. Remember that J.Crew box I sent you a photo of with Leno sniffing it?”

“I sure do. Anything good I should order in my size? You know I love those colorful high-waisted chinos they sell.”

That fact that I’m about to rip a huge hole in her madras print dreams weighs heavy on me, but I need to drop this bomb once and for all.

“It wasn’t actually a package from J.Crew. It was...Decker’s ashes. His urn got shipped back to me from the mausoleum and now it’s in my apartment.”

I wince as if I’m bracing for a slap to the face.

“What do you mean it’s in your apartment? Decker’s in your apartment?!” she shrills in reply. I have no choice but to hold the receiver four inches from my head until it sounds like she’s calmed down.