email that you sent to them, explicitly leaking said information.”
Cleo did not hear Topher reply because Topher had not, in fact, thought of something to say.
“You’re fired,” Veronica said, and Cleo slapped her hand to her mouth in disbelief.
“Ms. Kaye,” Topher started to protest. “Her regrets and behavior made her a liability. You couldn’t see that! The intentions behind my actions were to protect you.”
“Oh, Topher,” Veronica said with even less patience than before. “Only a man would think that regrets were a liability.”
“Ms. Kaye—”
Veronica cut him off. “I don’t like telling anyone something twice.”
Cleo, a little bit reverent, didn’t dare to speak until Veronica took the phone off speaker.
“Veronica,” she said. “I . . . I didn’t ask for that.”
“No,” Veronica agreed. “But you and I both know that an office with one less duplicitous prick is already a better place of work.”
Cleo laughed. Then Veronica said: “Oh, fuck him.” And Cleo laughed harder.
Gaby did drive them to the airport on Saturday morning, just to be there for support.
“I know I didn’t get to all five regrets,” Cleo said on the sidewalk outside departures. “I think this is a first—you and me not crossing a finish line.” She pulled her into an embrace. “But thank you for pushing me into the others. And thanks for understanding why I’m doing this one without you.”
They disentangled, and Gaby actually looked a little moved.
“And if I see Oliver, I’ll tell him hello,” Cleo added.
“Oh God,” Gaby groaned. “I like him too much.”
“Fine, can I also tell him that I know you have FaceTime sex nightly or is that overstepping?”
“Jesus Christ, Mom!” Lucas shrieked from the sidewalk at Dulles. “I mean, seriously!”
The doctors had cleared Lucas for flying, but Cleo was nervous and doting anyway. She insisted on checking both bags because she didn’t want him carrying his duffel, and she indulged him and bought him two scones and a vanilla Frappuccino at Starbucks, which reminded her of Bowen. She checked her email again, but there was no reply, and she assumed that maybe that was just how it was going to be. Bowen had twenty-four-year-olds throwing themselves at him, for God’s sake. He certainly didn’t need to sign up for the mess that Cleo dragged along with her. And she wasn’t going to chase him. Cleo was a thirty-seven-year-old single mom, likely candidate for the president of the United States. Her story wasn’t going to begin and end and hang the moon on a man.
Still, though, they were boarding the plane in search of a different boy, and Cleo didn’t know how to feel about that. Doug Smith was as much of a stranger as the person sitting in the aisle seat next to her, and she had no way of knowing how he’d react, if he was married, if he had children, if he’d want another one. If he’d be angry, if he’d be resentful, if he’d be happy. She and Lucas had discussed all this, and he was still OK flying, literally, into the unknown. Her boy was braver than she was, but then she reconsidered and thought of how far she’d come from the seventeen-year-old girl who had been orphaned, and she gave herself credit because she was pretty brave too. Not perfect. But brave and perfect didn’t have to be synonymous.
Matty picked them up at the airport, which was sweet of him, because, well, Matty was still Matty, and too good in some ways for her. Cleo could see how wrong she’d gotten that. Lucas FaceTimed Esme the whole ride to the hotel, and they made plans to meet later at the same coffee shop of their first date later that night.
“So you chose Esme?” Cleo asked, because she couldn’t help herself. “I mean, not Marley?”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “God, Mom, I told you. We don’t have labels.”
“I know, but—”
“Why can’t it just be that we are happy in the moment, and as long as no one is being dishonest, that’s what it is?”
Matty reached over and squeezed her leg, a grin on both their faces, as if the notion were both completely preposterous and ridiculously endearing.
“OK,” Cleo said. “I won’t ask again.”
“Thank you.” Lucas sighed, but Cleo suspected that it was better to ask too many questions of your child than not ask enough.
Matty helped them with their bags and lingered after they checked in to the Sheraton (again).
“Want to grab a bite?” he proposed.
“How don’t you have plans for the night? I saw those photos at