The Survivor's Guide to Family Happiness

  PRAISE FOR MADDIE DAWSON

  Praise for The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness

  “Maddie Dawson’s novels should come with a warning label: May cause tears, laughter, or all of the above.”

  —Sarah Knight, bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck

  “Like authors Liane Moriarty and Jojo Moyes, Maddie Dawson spins tales that tackle our most universal longings for love, connection, and family. I loved every witty sentence.”

  —Holly Robinson, author of Chance Harbor and Beach Plum Island

  Praise for The Opposite of Maybe

  “Dawson’s charmingly eccentric cast of characters is at turns lovable and infuriating, ensuring a quick read helmed by a memorable, complex heroine.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Delightfully witty . . . a messy, funny, surprising story of second chances.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “At turns poignant and funny, this book is brimming with charm.”

  —Sarah Pekkanen, internationally bestselling author of The Best of Us and The Opposite of Me

  “Dawson’s lyrical, realistic portrayal of a modern-day relationship and all its complexities is rich with humor and insight.”

  —Kristan Higgins, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfect Match and Waiting on You

  “A quirky, warm, insightful, feel-good confection of a novel.”

  —Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House and Tempting Fate

  Praise for The Stuff That Never Happened

  “This deceptively bouncing, ultimately wrenching novel will grab you at page one.”

  —People

  “Enjoyable prose and keen characterizations.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Surprising, illuminating, and always believable.”

  —Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales

  “A paean to family happiness as much as romance.”

  —Stewart O’Nan, author of Songs for the Missing

  Praise for Kissing Games of the World

  “Engrossing, charming, and often funny exploration of love and relationships.”

  —Library Journal, starred review

  “Like Anne Tyler, [the author] seems to possess a nearly boundless capacity for empathy.”

  —Connecticut Post

  “An absolute treat . . . filled with realistic twists, complex characters and a moving conclusion.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for A Piece of Normal

  “Delves into family relationships with humor and empathy, making this a pleasurable read.”

  —Booklist

  “Richly textured, insightful novel.”

  —Library Journal

  ALSO BY MADDIE DAWSON

  The Opposite of Maybe

  The Stuff That Never Happened

  Kissing Games of the World

  A Piece of Normal

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Maddie Dawson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503939103

  ISBN-10: 1503939103

  Cover design by Janet Perr

  For Jim

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  PHOEBE, TILTON, AND A.J.

  1979

  So he was really, really leaving, like his parents had told him he had to, and even though she already knew he wouldn’t stand up to them, she had held out the tiniest bit of hope that something would happen and there would be a reprieve.

  But no. Sometime between tomorrow morning and the end of the world, Tilton O’Malley would be taken by his father to attend the University of Snobs and Rich People, but right now, he was still theirs—hers and A.J.’s—and it was just another oppressively hot August night and they were running the streets. Only difference was that Tilton was wearing a wrinkled, button-down white shirt with his red-striped tie loosened—he’d been liberated from his parents’ official preppy good-bye party for him, after all—but he was drunk and stoned and red faced and laughing way too much, like always. He kept bumping his hip into Phoebe Mullen’s as they walked down the middle of the street, trying to get her to smile at him.

  She did even better than smile: she lifted her arms overhead and danced her flamenco moves, singing and flipping her long red hair and swinging her hips into his friend A.J.’s hip instead, looking right at Tilton, daring him to react.

  Tilton flushed and turned away, but shit, he deserved it. He hadn’t even insisted to his mom that they invite Phoebe to the party, for Christ’s sake. That’s how bad things had gotten. He had no guts. None, not one gut.

  It was weird now to think that Phoebe had once thought he might take her with him. Tilton could get her a place near the college, her and the baby. Correction: babies; the other one would be born soon. She’d even worked out a budget for them: he’d have the campus meal plan his parents were paying for, and she could get by on beans and rice and Hamburger Helper. He’d live in the dorm, of course, but he could come and visit on weekends, maybe even do his studying at their kitchen table. And as for money, she was only seventeen, but she’d start a babysitting business in the apartment, a little day care, so she could be home with the kids.

  Oh, she had been an idiot, as her sister had told her. And everyone knew it. She was the worst kind of idiot, making those plans. Holding on to all that hope.

  She tucked her arm inside A.J.’s and smirked at Tilton.

  “Come on, Pheebs, stop acting weird,” Tilton said. “It’s our last night! Can’t we have fuuuuun?”

  A. J. Barnes—skinny, appease-at-any-cost A.J.—agreed with him. He disengaged himself from Phoebe and passed Tilton the joint. “Let’s go to the ball field and take care of that scoreboard. Once and for all, man.”

  It was a guy thing, this need to hit out the lights. Once they got to the ball field, Tilton jimmied the hinge to the supply shed, and the two of them threw themselves against the door, laughing as the plywood splintered into shards. Bats and balls crashed down around them. A.J. jumped back so fast that his cowboy hat came off, and he scurried to get it in the dirt.

  For this she had sneaked out of the apartment, leaving her sleeping rosy-faced toddler with her sister. She’d had to—it was their last night, and she had to be here, to feel it all, because when she became a famous actress she would need to remember every single moment of the end of this relationship. And—she had to be resolved about this—this was the end. She, A.J., and Tilton had spent the past three years of high school sneaking out late at night, dodging headlights and cop cars, laughing and smoking joints, talking about stuff, reciting comedy, passing between them the Budweisers that A.J. filched from his stepfather’s stash. And it had all been wonderful, the best thing she’d probably ever have in her whole life. Tilton was the first guy who listened to her, who thought she was smart and pretty, and made her feel like it didn’t matter that she didn’t have parents anymore and had to live with her sister in the most crowded, pathetic apartment ever. She—red-haired, freckled, artistically dorky—had somehow become cool, respected, acting with him in plays, singing in choruses, being his girlfriend.

  And, well, there was the other thing, the sex. After they shooed A.J. away, she and Tilton would come back down here to the ball field and have sex under the bleachers. Baseball sex, he called it. They’d figured out how to do it just about anywhere—backstage at the high school, in the hallway of her apartment building—but his favorite place was in his mom’s BMW while it was parked in the family’s garage (“suicide sex,” he’d called it, because he’d have to immolate himself if his mother caught him).

  But not tonight. No, no, no. Tonight, sitting there on the bleachers watching him being so happy, she realized she was filled with hate. It was like a physical thing inside of her, a ball of hate that she could beam toward anything. She directed that hate toward his floppy blond hair as it caught the weak light from the street; then it went to the way he laughed and stuck his butt out, leanin
g into the strike zone. She turned her head and hated that the dirt was red, that the bleachers were blue and needed paint, and that she shouldn’t be drinking because of the baby—not the sweet-smelling thirteen-month-old baby Kate who was asleep in her sister’s apartment, but the new baby who would be born after Tilton was enrolled in his stupid college. The hate told her to stand up, and then she heard her own raspy voice screaming, “Come on, Tilty! Hit it like you mean it!”

  He peered at her through the dark, and she imagined he could see the white stars she’d embroidered on her black cape, one star for every time they’d done it, except that then they were doing it so often she lost count.

  A.J. had warned her this day would come. Way back in tenth grade.

  “You know,” he’d said, “they’re going to make him go off to an Ivy League thing. You do know that, right? That we’re not the kind of people they want him to end up with?”

  “That’s not true,” she’d said. “His mom likes me.”

  “You poor idiot. Like is not the same thing as end up with,” he said.

  The ball rolled into the grass and stopped. Tilton yelled at A.J. to pitch him something that could be hit.

  “I’ll do it.” She got up, heaving her belly, and went out onto the field. And then she threw the ball in a perfect, exquisite arc, which he hit back to her, laughing—laughing the way he did during sex sometimes, laughing in joy at the surprise of it all: the deep night, the white ball like a comet sailing over the plate, the fact that she knew him so well she could aim for the exact spot on the bat. The three of them watched as the ball crashed against the scoreboard, smashing the lightbulbs that made up the o in Home. A nearby police cruiser turned on its siren, and then they were all laughing and running down the path through the woods; she kept up, she with her seven-months-heavy belly wrapped up in the cape with the embroidered stars and flowers. She ran, as good as the boys, until they got to the oak tree, and then Tilton was at her elbow, his voice rough and urgent by her ear, saying “Please don’t be mad,” it wasn’t his idea to go to that fucking college, his parents were making him, and she knew that, didn’t she, and he loved her and he’d probably flunk out anyway without her there to write his papers for him, and when that happened, he’d just come back home. He’d be home by Christmas with a slate full of Fs.

  “No, you won’t,” she said, and she didn’t let him wrap her up in his arms when he tried to, because there was no way to explain to him yet again that it was even worse that he didn’t want to go, that he was allowing himself to be pushed around.

  A.J. said they should drive to the beach for old times’ sake. Get stoned and chase the waves. Look to see if the sand had that bioluminescent stuff tonight. Tilton said they should take his mother’s Beamer, but first they’d have to sneak it out of the garage.

  They could watch the sun come up, he said.

  A.J. slid his eyes over to Phoebe’s. “You okay with this?”

  She shrugged. The ball of hate said, Hell, yes.

  She tried not to think about what would happen if Kate woke up, crying for her, and if her sister found out she’d sneaked out, which they had agreed she wouldn’t do anymore. No more throwing yourself at this guy, okay? Look at you, with the second one on the way now. For Chrissakes, what’s going to become of you?

  “Here, this is for you,” Tilton said, and he took a big hit off the joint and held the sides of her head and breathed the smoke into her mouth. He put his hands under her cape and stroked her big stomach. “Hello there, little baby, this is your daddy talking,” he said. She closed her eyes, swimming against the current of him, almost drowning.

  Last week he’d said to her, “We’ll get married when I finish college. We’ll have a lot of money, and we’ll make more babies,” and A.J., sitting beside them at the time, had snorted and given Phoebe that look again.

  The guys pushed the car out of the O’Malleys’ garage so the engine noise wouldn’t wake Tilton’s parents.

  “You have to drive,” Tilton whispered to her. “We’ll push while you pop the clutch.”

  She stared at him, but he went in and out of focus.

  “Can you do it, Pheebs?”

  She got in carefully, ran her hands over the soft leather seats where they had made love so many times. It always smelled like money, this car.

  “Do you hear me? Pop the clutch!”

  The car was moving, and she slammed her foot on the pedal, and the engine roared to life, and in an instant the boys were piling into the car, sweating, laughing, slamming the doors, Tilton in her ear hissing, “Drive! Go! Go!”

  She drove slowly, like she was maneuvering a parade float, but he was saying, “Go faster! Christ, there’s a car coming! Floor it!”

  She looked at him, stunned by a miraculous thought. What if they simply . . . left town? Tonight! They could leave tonight! She felt like this thought had been traveling to her from across the universe for so long and had only now arrived, in the nick of time. They could run away! Yes, the three of them—they’d head to the beach and then keep on going, up to Maine, maybe to Canada. She’d arrange for Kate to come; Phoebe’s sister would gladly send her.

  She said, “Tilty, listen,” and his eyes were looking directly into hers so deeply he might have been able to see where the hate and the hope were fighting to the death.

  He said, “Baby, can you drive faster?” and there was a loud crash and bright, spinning lights, and screaming—so much screaming—and then it was as though somebody had pulled some giant power cord to the world or something, because everything just turned . . . off.

  ONE

  NINA

  Thirty-five years later

  The morning after my mother’s funeral, before I had changed the sheets on her bed, before I even knew if I was going to survive living without her, I went into the kitchen and took the fifteen unlabeled casserole dishes from the refrigerator and, one by one, scooped out their moldy contents and hurled all that food out the back door into the snow.

  It was the happiest I’d felt in weeks. No, months.

  Well-meaning people had brought these as an offering of kindness. People I loved who thought that not bringing food to the dying was maybe the worst thing you could ever do—and I had been grateful. But we couldn’t keep up, my mother and I. The casserole dishes stacked up like accusations in the refrigerator. When I opened the door, they shouted their grievances.

  I stood there watching as pieces of macaroni, ham, lima beans, squash, and unidentified red items went flying against the deep-blue February sky, then landed on the snowbank, where they created an instant abstract painting. One spunky little yellow casserole dish escaped my hands and bounced off the railing of the porch and then crashed across the ice, and smashed into a million pieces near the garbage cans.

  I gave that one a standing ovation, then got my phone and took a picture of the hillside canvas, now splattered with reds and beiges and greens.

  I messaged it to Dan, my ex, with one sentence: When someone dies, people bring horrifying food and I make art of it, and he wrote back immediately: You know Julie doesn’t like it when you text me first thing in the a.m.

  Tough, I typed. She shoulda thought of that when she started dating a married man. He wrote: WE ARE NOT MARRIED, NINA. And then I wrote: But we WERE and clicked off the phone so I didn’t have to hear from Julie about how I was being inappropriate and could I please respect the boundaries she and Dan were trying to set. Last week she actually wrote, We are being patient because we know your mom is dying but please respect our space.

  I walked through the silent townhouse—silent, that is, except for the sounds of voices in the units on either side. Normal people all getting ready for their next normal day, not even thinking about how lucky they were to be alive.

  It was seven twenty-two, the time of the day my mom and I used to have our first healthy shake of the day. We’d lie on her rented hospital bed next to the picture window and watch Kathie Lee and Hoda until some serious topic came up, which would then make my mother remember that we weren’t laughing enough. She had decided to treat her stage-four liver cancer with laughter and green smoothies. The drowsy days had flowed into one another, one Mel Brooks movie after another, none distinguishable from the next. We were on Cancer Time now, she said.