The next morning we woke up at like 4:30 since we’d gone to bed so early. I’d barely gotten any sleep because I was up thinking of how to articulate why I was upset about Brady’s girlfriend. Plus, I really needed to redeem myself after my low blow. Brendan sometimes describes his ex-wife as “mean” and I really cannot have him thinking I am too.

“Morning,” Brendan said, squeezing me. “Wanna go to the gym with me?”

It’s like, first of all, no. And secondly, we still needed to finish our fight from the day before.

“I would rather die,” I said.

He laughed and squeezed me tighter. “I love you. I’m sorry about yesterday.”

See what I mean? Why was he apologizing to me when I was the one who was out of line? He’s like impossible to fight with.

“Yeah, I wanted to talk about that,” I said. “I know you think I’m a lunatic so I feel like I should explain.”

“Mmhm,” Brendan said, not even denying thinking I’m a lunatic.

“It’s not about him having a girlfriend, I don’t care about that. I’m just concerned about Winnie and the effect this will have on her…” I realized that I probably still sounded bitter as I explained how I wasn’t sure if Brady’s new girlfriend would last as he is deathly afraid of commitment.

Brendan said that he totally understood where I was coming from and he didn’t want me to think he didn’t. And since he comes from divorced parents, he talked me through it and helped me think about it rationally. I guess I felt a little better, but he said that Margot is the only woman his dad ever introduced him to so if Brady brings Kara around Winnie then he better marry her.

Speaking of Winnie, a little while later, I heard the faint sounds of her getting up and padding through the apartment. Our routine in the morning goes like this: Winnie wakes up between 5 and 5:30, “sneaks” into my room to snuggle in bed with me and then she will dramatically talk about how hungry she is so we have to get up to have breakfast. Sure enough, seconds later I felt her tiny little arms around me. It feels like a long time coming, but Winnie is actually obsessed with me now. I don’t know how to explain it but I felt like she always used to just tolerate me, but loved Brady. But now she never wants to leave my side and tells me she loves me all the time and snuggles with me in the morning. And maybe that’s why I was so concerned about the potential of a new woman in her life. I only just got her to like me!

We all stayed in bed for a while and Winnie asked Brendan to make her exactly four waffles and eight sausages. I love how close Brendan and Winnie are and how seamlessly he fits into our lives. And it occurred to me that I was being kind of selfish by not hoping for the same thing on Brady’s side. If Winnie ended up loving Kara, that would be the best case scenario right? I needed to get over myself.

A few weeks later, I was minding my own business on Zillow, flipping through pictures of houses I can’t afford. It’s a hobby of mine. I like to bookmark my faves and then watch as the prices inevitably start dropping after a while. I was shocked and confused when I stumbled upon the listing for Brady’s house though. You know, the house he insisted he bought for Winnie to grow up in? It popped up since I’d saved it previously. Wait, what? It’s Brady’s house that he purchased solely in his name and he’s entitled to do whatever he wants, but I assumed it was a mistake (seems like a crazy big mistake to me). I took a screenshot and sent it to Brady.

“Yep,” he replied.

“What? Why wouldn’t you tell me?” I said back.

“I told Winnie. I figured she might tell you,” Brady said.

Winnie does have a big mouth, to be fair. For example, she told Brady how I cried about him having a girlfriend at dinner (thanks, Winnie!) and he was forced to tell her about Kara even though he hadn’t planned on it yet. So I guess I was kind of surprised that she didn’t tell me.

“Why are you selling? Where are you moving to?” I asked.

Brady gave me some vague explanation about how he wanted to downsize and it was a good market to sell. He avoided my question about where he was moving to so I asked again.

“I’m staying in Connecticut,” he said.

I wondered if this had anything to do with his new girlfriend and even if they were moving in together (which would be absurd). It all seemed like a lot of change for Brady — who notoriously never changes anything about his life. Not even his hair. But perhaps change would be good for the guy. The biggest memories I have in that house are escaping the pandemic, slowly breaking up with Brady and then being majorly depressed so I guess I can’t really blame him for wanting to get rid of it.

And speaking of moving in together, Brendan’s new apartment is finally complete. It was really fun to watch it all come together, especially since I had a hand in picking every little detail from the bathroom marble to the pots for the indoor plants. And he invited me to check in on the progress whenever he went to see it because he knows I have an eye for detail and if there was anything out of place, I was going to find it. The cutie construction team started calling me “The Boss.” So maybe this is absolutely insane, but I thought he might ask us to move into his new apartment with him. Especially since I kept dropping hints — by claiming closet space for my bags and picking out a paint color for Winnie’s room. And half of the hardwood in the primary would be without underfloor heating if it weren’t for me! And I kept bringing up the fact that I was looking at new apartments on StreetEasy to try to get him to bite. But nope. I moved into my new apartment and he moved into his and it’s fine. It’s too soon I guess and we spend almost every night together anyway.

Mike had a trip to Chicago planned and since Paige is super pregnant, he asked me to go with him instead. I wasn’t particularly excited to travel with Mike, but a Chicago trip sounded fun. And then I had the bright idea to invite Brendan and we could make a whole thing of it! I’d show him around all of my old haunts and the places I used to act a fool at!

Brendan was like, “Hmm, I don’t know if I’d want to do a middle of the week trip. Maybe another time or something, idk.” All indecisively. And it really bothered me because why wouldn’t he be dying to go to Chicago with me? Why did it matter if it was in the middle of the week if he’s working less at his company? I was even more mad a few days later, when he told me that Mike said he should come to Chicago “for networking” and so now he was coming on the trip. Not because he wanted to spend any time with me or see where I lived, but because Mike asked him to. I guess I can understand him not inviting me and my three year old to live with him in his sparkly new house, but that paired with him not wanting to take a trip with me made me think maybe our relationship isn’t as serious as I thought. Like he’s not as into me as I’m into him. I realize that I’m with his family at most of their holiday events and trips, but still. He doesn’t exactly have to go out of his way to include me in that.