The Blessings of the Animals: A Novel - By Katrina Kittle Page 0,123

doll, and get coffee going.” This is for Gabby. Just follow. I pictured myself escaping to the barn later, to comb Moonshot’s tail. I felt socked in the gut to remember Moonshot is gone.

After lunch, as we arranged ourselves for the torturous Opening of the Gifts, Mimi passed out a little blank book and instructed every guest to write some “marriage advice” for Olive.

Olive called me to sit next to her. I had to record who had given her which present. The gifts were endless, the ritual tedious. Gabriella took Zuzu upstairs. Helen and Aurora made up some reason to busy themselves in the kitchen. I envied them.

When the advice book made its way to me, I welcomed the distraction, flipping through the book for entertainment. But the “advice” was so sad. Page after page of “Hide the checkbook,” “Keep your own account,” “No checkbook, no sex,” and bullshit like that. “Don’t give in early or you’ll give in forever.” “Be the boss.” “Get your way, but make it seem like it’s his idea.” I looked at the women’s faces before me. Did they believe that? This was the marriage advice they’d offer their niece, their cousin, their daughter?

I wrote, “Always be honest, kind, and generous with each other. Never take each other for granted. Go to bed with the promise ‘More fun tomorrow.’ ”

I held up the book, “Anyone still need to write advice?”

Aunt Jen smirked. “You have marriage advice? Consider the source, Olive.”

There was a slight inhalation from the group, but Olive made that smoke-ring mouth and said, “I’d treasure anything my best friend has to offer me. Consider the source? She made it eighteen years with my piece-of-shit brother, so I think she knows a little something!”

Jen and Olive exchanged profanity. Mimi yelled at them both. Gabby came downstairs to see what was going on. Zuzu barked at the skirmish. Helen stood in the kitchen doorway, her mouth agape as if she were watching the Jerry Springer Show. Old Lucy shouted, “What did she say?”

Mimi said, “You’ve had too much goddamn wine in the middle of the afternoon! I knew we shouldn’t have wine. Have some fucking manners, for Christ’s sake!”

Lydia stood up and said, in a surprisingly deep, authoritative voice, “Ladies. Come on. Let’s remember what this occasion is for. This is Olive’s day. Let’s end on a nicer note.”

Everyone glared at her but stopped shouting. In the silence, the donkey brayed down in the barn. Several women jumped and clutched their hearts. “What the hell is that?” Mimi asked.

When Luna brayed again and Zuzu howled in response, a laugh rumbled up from deep in my belly. I couldn’t stop. It was that same kind of laughter that possesses you in church or in school—the harder you try to stop, the more helpless you are. I shook with it as the party broke up.

The women formed a procession to kiss Olive’s cheeks. Jen left first and waited in her car for the other women she’d driven with. Muriel clambered onto the hood of the car. Jen kept honking to try to get the goat off, but it made everyone inside think she was trying to hurry everyone up. Mimi went outside and shouted at her.

In the kitchen, Lydia whispered, “Oh, my God.”

I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and got my giggling under control enough to say, “Welcome to the Binardi family.”

“It’s like The Sopranos without all the guns.”

That did it. Laughter took me again. Gabriella joined me. “You haven’t seen the guns?” we asked.

Chapter Forty-One

MIMI

A LOT OF DAMN GOOD IT DID HER, ALL HER WORK TO GET Bobby to go back to Cami. She’d told him from day one, “Your sorry ass is not spending one fucking night on my couch. You go back home to the best woman you’ll ever have.” The problem was he didn’t need her couch. He already had an apartment with that redheaded tramp. What’s with the red hair? His new wife had red hair, too. For the love of Christ, if that’s what he was after, Cami could’ve gotten a dye job.

What a disaster today, this shower. Jen. They never should’ve invited her. And Lydia! Bobby should’ve told her not to come. Why the hell did she want to be there? Poor Cami. As if she hadn’t been through enough.

Cami. Mimi loved her like a daughter. She was her daughter, and she always would be. Mimi had stayed to help her with all the dishes after the shower.