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Part 2: The Slideshow
The slides kept coming.
Some people say my mom is boring.
A photo of me in a giant dinosaur costume, chasing Dustin across our backyard. He was five.
Dustin said, She wore this for my whole fifth birthday party. Even when it was ninety degrees.
Some people say my mom doesn’t take care of herself.
A photo of me asleep on a hospital chair beside Dustin’s bed. When he had his appendix out. Two years ago.
Dustin said, She didn’t go home for three days. She slept in this chair. She said she’d take care of herself later.
Parents were wiping their eyes. Teachers stood frozen along the walls.
Then the last slide.
What I say about my mom.
A photo of the two of us that morning. In our ridiculous pumpkin costumes. Laughing so hard our eyes were closed.
Underneath, in Dustin’s handwriting, scanned from paper:
She’s the best pumpkin in the whole world.
The gym erupted. Everyone stood up. They clapped for a full minute.
Dustin handed the microphone back to the principal. He walked down from the stage and straight into my arms.
I couldn’t speak. I just held him.
He said, quietly, I didn’t say her name. I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. I just wanted people to know the truth.
Across the gym, Annabelle grabbed her purse. She walked out the side door. Nigel followed her.
That night, Nigel called me.
He was angry. He said Dustin had humiliated Annabelle in front of the whole school. He said I put him up to it.
He said, Everyone knew who he meant. Half the parents were staring at her.
He said, You’ve turned my son against my girlfriend.
I kept my voice calm.
Nigel, I didn’t know anything about it. He made it himself. With the photos on his tablet.
And he didn’t use her name. Not once.
Nigel said I should make Dustin apologize to Annabelle.
No, I said quietly. He didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. If anyone owes anyone an apology, it isn’t him.
He hung up.
The next morning, Dustin came into the kitchen in his pajamas.
He said, Mom, Dad texted me. He says I’m not allowed to come this weekend.
He says Annabelle doesn’t want me there.
Part 3: Ten Years
I sat at the kitchen table after Dustin went to school. And I let myself count.
Ten years old.
Ten years of being his mom. Seven of them married to Nigel. Three divorced.
I counted the weekends Dustin spent at his dad’s house since Annabelle moved in. Twenty-two.
I counted the times he came home quiet. Nineteen.
I counted the comments he told me about. Terrible taste in clothes. Let herself go. How did you stay married to her.
He only told me five. I knew there were more.
Then I counted the times I said something bad about Nigel in front of Dustin.
Zero.
I promised myself, the day we separated, that I would never make him choose.
I thought about what he’d been carrying. Every other weekend, he sat at his father’s dinner table while someone made fun of his mother.
He never said a word. He was ten.
Then he went home and quietly built a slideshow. Out of photos of his mom. To answer every single one.
He didn’t say her name. He didn’t call her mean. He just told the truth.
That afternoon, I called my family lawyer.
She reminded me that our parenting plan had a clause. Neither parent, and no one in either home, could make disparaging remarks about the other parent in front of the child.
She said, Nigel can’t cancel his visitation to punish Dustin, either. That’s not how a parenting plan works.
She said, I’ll send him a letter.
That evening, my doorbell rang.
It was Annabelle.
Alone.
Part 4: Annabelle
Annabelle stood on my porch. She wasn’t smirking now.
She said she came to talk. Just the two of us.
I stepped outside. I closed the door.
She said Dustin’s slideshow went online. Some parent posted it. Thousands of views.
She said, Everyone at my work saw it. Everyone knows it was about me.
She said she was being called cruel in the comments. She said she’d been crying all day.
She said, I’m not a monster. I was joking. Everyone jokes about exes.
Then her voice changed.
She said, You need to tell Dustin to stop. Tell him to take it down. Tell everyone it wasn’t about me.
She said, Nigel and I are talking about getting married. Dustin needs to accept me.
Then she said the thing she came to say.
If you don’t fix this, I’ll make sure he’s not welcome at his father’s house. I’ll make Nigel choose.
I felt that one land. It was meant to.
Because I didn’t want Dustin to lose his father. Not over this.
I took a slow breath.
Annabelle, I said quietly, Dustin didn’t post that video. Another parent did. I’ll ask the school to have it taken down. For Dustin’s sake. Not for yours.
She nodded.
But I’m not going to tell anyone it wasn’t about you, I said. He never said your name. But he heard every word you said about me.
Every weekend. For months.
Her face crumpled.
And you won’t make Nigel choose, I said gently. Our parenting plan already says what happens if Dustin’s weekends get canceled. My lawyer sent Nigel a letter today.
You don’t have to like me, Annabelle. But you can’t talk about me in front of my son.
Annabelle stood on my porch for a long time.
Then she said, very quietly, My mother used to talk about my dad’s new wife. Every single weekend.
She said, I hated it. I hated her. I swore I’d never do that.
She looked down at her hands.
I didn’t even notice I was doing it.
Part 5: The Best Pumpkin
I didn’t know what to say. So I just stood there with her on the porch.
After a while, she said, I was eleven. My mom made fun of my stepmother’s cooking. Her clothes. Her laugh. Every time I came home from my dad’s.
She said, I believed her. I was cruel to that woman for years.
She said, She passed away when I was twenty-four. I never apologized.
Then Annabelle started to cry.
The front door opened behind me.
Dustin stood there in his pajamas. He had heard everything.
He looked at Annabelle. He said, quietly, Are you sad?
She wiped her eyes. She said, Yes. I’m sorry, Dustin. For the things I said about your mom.
She said, You were right. Every single slide.
Dustin thought about it for a long moment.
Then he said, That’s okay. You can come to the next fall fair. Mom can make you a costume too.
Annabelle laughed through her tears.
The school took the video down that week.
Nigel called me on Thursday. He apologized. He said he’d been laughing because he didn’t know what else to do. He said he never stopped to think how it felt for Dustin.
He said, He’s a better man at ten than I was at thirty-five.
Dustin went to his dad’s house that weekend. When he came home, he wasn’t quiet.
He said, Annabelle made pancakes. She asked me what your favorite color is.
I asked him what he told her.
He said, Orange. Like a pumpkin.
The following October, I got a text from Annabelle.
Can you teach me to make a pumpkin costume? I want to wear one to the fair. If that’s okay.
I said yes.
That year, three people walked into Dustin’s school fall fair in ridiculous homemade pumpkin costumes.
Me. Dustin. And Annabelle.
Nigel walked behind us, holding the pumpkin cupcakes and laughing.
This time, it was the good kind of laughing.
When the principal announced the prizes, Dustin’s class booth won Best Costumes.
Dustin ran up to the stage to get the ribbon.
Then he turned around, held it up, and pointed straight at me.
He shouted into the microphone, Still the best pumpkin in the whole world!
