the rest of the letters on the stack, even though I’m nauseated and almost unable to breathe. I never knew my mom was dating someone before she died—let alone a married man.
“Knock, knock,” Chloe says, poking her head into the attic. “I’ve watched an entire episode of Dr. Oz since you went up here, and now I know way more than I wanted to about superfoods and— oh, my God, are you crying?”
She pulls herself into the attic and runs over to me, floorboards creaking under her feet.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, kneeling beside me. “Are you thinking about Drew again? Because I promise he’s going to come back here any minute, sad and sorry and ready to bang the living daylights out of you.”
I shake my head and wave the letter I’m holding. “My mom was having an affair with a married guy. Right before she died.”
Chloe shakes her head. “That . . . doesn’t sound like your mom.”
“It’s right here, Chlo, in these letters. It was some guy named Edwin, and he didn’t leave his wife, and . . .” I trail off, not even sure what else there is to say. I look at Chloe. “I thought she believed in true love, like her perfect relationship with my dad. And now I know that not only had she totally moved on from him, but she was having an affair!”
I watch Chloe read the last letter, her lips moving slightly and her eyes widening in shock. She looks up at me and exhales. “This is . . . a lot.”
“I know.”
She reaches out and strokes my arm. “I’m sorry, hon.”
“There is no romantic comedy where this happens. Like, I can’t name a single rom-com that begins or ends with a person carrying on an affair with a married man, then getting her heart smashed to smithereens.”
“Maybe a Mike Nichols movie,” Chloe says, raising a shoulder, but when I glare at her she says, “Okay, okay, you’re right. This isn’t funny.”
“It’s really, really not.”
Chloe lowers herself from her crouching position until she’s sitting beside me on the dusty attic floor. “So this sucks. There’s no way around that.”
I nod and wipe my nose on my sleeve again. Chloe cringes.
“But all it really means is that you found out your mom was a human being. It’s shitty, but we all have to learn that at some point. For me, it was when my mom ran off to Ann Arbor to meet her online boyfriend when we were in elementary school. And then it happened again when I had to put my dad in a memory-care facility because he wandered out of the house and was missing for an entire hour.”
I nod, chastened, because I tend to forget how hard and lonely Chloe’s life has been.
“And listen,” she continues. “I’m not saying my problems are bigger than yours, because sure, my mom’s still alive out there somewhere. But at least your mom didn’t totally suck when she was alive. I get that you want to have this perfect image of your mom in your mind, to remember her as this angel who was pining away for your father and believing hopelessly in true love, but no one’s flawless. All this means is that your mom was like any of us—kind of a fucked-up person who made bad decisions sometimes. That doesn’t mean she loved you any less.”
I nod. “You’re right. You’re totally right.”
She leans into me and wraps me into a side hug, putting her head on my shoulder. “Listen, there are some brownies down there with your name on them, and I’m pretty sure there’s an entire hour of Family Feud coming up. Instead of a rom-com, do you wanna let Steve Harvey cure your ills?”
I nod again. “Yeah. Okay.”
Chloe smiles at me, concern still written on her face. “I’ll go slice you off a brownie and pour you a glass of milk while you clean up, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Pizza Slut.”
“Anytime, Pizza Slut.”
I watch Chloe’s head disappear as she crawls down the ladder. She is, really and truly, the best friend I could ask for. She’s been buoying me lately, and always, even though she has more than enough on her own plate to worry about—her dad, her classes, her job, the endless stream of apparently very sexually satisfying dates she goes on. And it’s not like what she said wasn’t true or helpful, so I didn’t want to make her feel bad by rejecting it.