boxes and squares #5.6: fuck you, thank you

November 2088. Colette Marin is 31, Jordan Graham is 28, Felix and Milo are 9, Maria Boone is 26.

Colette wouldn’t find them a better dad, because dating sucked and she was bad at it. That was what she tried to tell herself, anyway. But, if she really wanted to be honest, she wouldn’t find them a better dad because they adored him to the ends of the earth, and he was coming home, and there was nothing more these boys wanted in the world.

For two days, he wouldn’t answer her phone calls or texts. But at some point he answered the boys, and they filled her in on the news. She didn’t have any way of knowing for how long they knew before her. “Dad is coming home!”

She would never win against that, because their adoration wasn’t up to her. She thought she should have been mad about it, and yet, there was also some relief in losing that battle. It took too long to realize that maybe she never should have been trying to win in the first place.



Milo hugged him right away. Felix was apprehensive for only a moment. “It’s okay if you’re mad,” Jordan told him. But then Felix broke down, too. Jordan held them both and kissed their stinky boy heads. “You smell like cheese.” They all laughed. Even Colette suppressed a chuckle, because it was so true, but she maintained her exterior neutrality, because she didn’t feel invited to this moment. And yet, here she was.



“Go get your warm coats,” Jordan ordered the boys. “Gloves and hats, too.”

The boys ran into the house to do as their father asked.

She didn’t know how she would feel to see him again after all these months. What would she say to him when he got here, forty-eight hours after that pivotal phone call, looking shook. He didn’t say he was coming earlier than expected, but somehow she felt that he would. That she drove him to it.



But the he really thought he could show up and take them whenever he wanted? “You’re not even going to ask?”

“No, I’m not asking.”

“You can’t just roll up out of nowhere and take them. It’s not gonna work like that.”

He chuckled bitterly. “I think you’ve had enough deciding what’s going to work or not. I’m taking my boys to the park. I’ll bring them back in a couple hours.”

She huffed and rolled her eyes.



“I have a lawyer, by the way,” he said. “It’s in the works. You’ll get the papers this week about visitation until the custody hearing for joint. We’ll do the schedules and all that. One week on, one week off—that usually works good at their age. That’s what you wanted.”

That was not what she wanted at all. “What do you mean, joint?”

“I want half,” he said. “Or more, actually. I’d take a few extra weeks in the summers.”

“How are you gonna have half? How would you have more? You said summer and weekends.”

He gave a small shrug. “I guess I changed my mind. I got the address. It’s local. The other side of town, by the quarry.”

“So you’re just here? For good? You’ll change your mind again.”

“No, I won’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”



“You’ll find out soon enough, I guess,” he said, looking smug.

She should have been mad, but she just felt stunned. The truth was, she didn’t want to fight for custody in a court. She just wanted to boss him around and have her way. As it turns out, that doesn’t make any of them happy.

“Well, you can’t just totally ignore my calls.”

“I was driving,” he said. “And I didn’t want to talk to you.”



He broke her heart. And yes, she had one. It was some shriveled up and black little thing, but it was there. Colette’s walls were miles thick, so it caught her off guard that anyone could reach her inside. Even him. But he promised they were family. He said that from his own mouth, and she said it, too, and family is a promise. She never cared a lot if he slept around (that didn’t appeal to him at all), and it didn’t ruin her much when he stopped sleeping with her to be exclusive with someone else. She cared a little, but she wasn’t ruined. She could even get over his traveling thing if he planned to come back enough. But he left their boys to go play daddy with somebody else’s kid, and she couldn’t deal with that. She had a right to be mad.

But then she picked herself up off the floor, she stewed in her rage for a few hours, then she realized what she had said to him and how he would take it.

“You’ll be sorry you said that,” her mother told her about her sharp tongue, her impatience, her vengeance. Jury was still out on whether she’d regret talking back to her mother. But Jordan stopped answering her calls for two whole days and she thought of those dark days after his dad died. What a mess he was then, too. Did his new girlfriend think she’d seen things? Colette had seen this man at his absolute worst. Colette had picked up those pieces. Colette had never known anyone in her life she could depend on like she could Jordan’s father, and all four of them lost Mick that year, but none of them lost him like Jordan did. He was twenty-two, an emotional wreck even at his best, and his mind went to dark places. Colette was the only one he had to talk him back from that despair. “Don’t say that, you idiot. The only way to be a bigger loser than you already are is to be a dead one.” And yes, that meant she should have known better now, as a grown woman and after all of these years.

But he came back, and he was stood here in front of her now with his stupid mad face. Be mad at me, please, she thought.



“I don’t wish you were dead. Okay? I’m sorry I said that. There’s probably a lot of things I shouldn’t have said, and I’m sorry.”

It felt like pulling blood from her throat, but he just looked so hollow. He wanted too much. He wanted things that were impossible, and she knew he blamed her for it. They could throw around blame all day and not get anywhere.



“Fine.” His tone said that he didn’t want to talk about it, not that she was forgiven. “Did you tell them about JoJo?”

“No, actually, I decided that you should do your own dirty work.”

“Okay. Thank you. I do appreciate that.”

“But you will tell them about her.”

“I will. They’ll know her and they’ll love her. She’s part of my life now, so she’s part of their life, too.”

“You can’t just decide that for everyone.”

“But I can decide it. It’s already decided.”




There was no more time to argue with two boys suited up for the cold and bombing out the door. At almost ten, the boys combined were bigger than Colette was already. She was never going to stop them. Then they were walking, quickly, halfway to the corner already.

“Have them back before eight. It’s a school night! Don’t forget to feed them dinner!”

He waved without turning around. They were gone.

It happened so fast. He was here, took them and was gone. And she was left with nothing but this festering grudge and this hollow void in her life. Half? He wanted half? He wanted to split her life in half and that wasn’t fair.

She stood on the porch in the cold. Was this anger or sadness? Did she want to scream or sob? There was nobody to scream at but herself, and that was so unsatisfying. But the past couple months have been so hard doing this all on her own, and maybe it was a bit of a help having him around to do what little he did. And she wanted more, so much more, but this is what she got.

He came back. Wasn’t that what she wanted? Then why wasn’t she happy?



Eventually, she went inside. She poured herself a bath and a large glass of wine which she drank too fast, and she sunk into the precious silence and stewed in the hot water. She shared this bathtub with nine-year-old boys. She deserved so much better.

She hated that he was here, and she loved that he came back. She hated him, she raged over him, she seethed over him, but she probably also loved him. In her rotten way.

This all reminded her of when the boys were toddlers, when he showed up out of the blue after having ditched them for so long, and she just wanted to say, fuck you and send him packing. But she was so tired and so alone that she let him back. Because he was tired and alone, too. And here she was again, letting him back after so much disappointment. Fuck you, she wanted to tell him. And thank you, but mostly fuck you. And thank you.

———

Once upon a time, Jordan promised his boys, “When I get back to Wisconsin, I’m gonna take you to that new skate park. No matter what, even if there’s a foot of snow.”

Life is funny that way. Because when they made it to Wisconsin on the first day of December, there was indeed nearly a foot of snow on the ground.

But they put on their warmest and they went to the skate park, anyway. Half of the ramps were buried, but the ice skating rink was open. Jordan hadn’t been on a board since he was a teenager, but he managed not to fall off and his kids thought he was the coolest ever, so that was fun.



Then he fell on the ice, and they learned he was not so cool after all. But that’s the way of things. Jordan had always been honest with his boys, and they would always know this about him: he would never be perfect, but he would always try his best.



They ate food truck burgers and hot dogs for dinner because the boys begged for it. Colette never took them out for fast food. Indeed she did not cook, but she paid a hefty price for gourmet dinner kits and organic snack foods. Jordan hated the junk too—after the fact, at least—but everyone knew he was the weak link with a guilty heart. His boys knew it most of all. If the payment for that was trash hamburgers, then so be it.




After dinner, he knew he had some things to talk about before he returned them to their mother.

“So, you know about Maria,” he started. “And I think maybe you know that Maria and I are living together now?”

Milo cut his train of thought, asking, “Oh, are you and Maria gonna get married?”

Man, these boys were coming out hot and heavy with the big questions already and it had only been three minutes.

“I don’t know,“ Jordan answered. “What would you think if we did?”

“I guess you can if you want,” Milo said. “She’s okay.”



“I don’t know if she’s okay,” Felix protested. “I didn’t talk to her that much.”

“You’ll get to spend a lot of time with her now. She’s okay, I promise.”

Felix, shrugs. “How come you and mom never got married?”

More heavy questions. Jordan dreaded this one, but it also amused him that he could end up answering everything except the one topic he planned to talk about tonight.

“Well, when you get older, you might date a few people before you find the one that’s a really good match. I was really young, and your mom and I were just trying things out, and then surprise, you guys came along. We weren’t ready for it, but we tried our best. Well, she tried her best first, and it took me a little longer to try my best. But we did. We tried, but we don’t want a lot of the same things. It’s hard to get married to someone if you don’t like the same things.”

The boys nodded quietly, having little interest in marriage in general.



“But there’s something else I need to tell you,” Jordan said. “Maybe you already thought about this, but you know Maria has a little girl, right? JoJo, you met her at the hotel? So if Maria is living with me, you know that means JoJo lives with us, too. Like, not just a sleepover. Forever.”

“Are you going to be her dad now?” Felix asked.

“You know she doesn’t have a dad. Her dad died.”



“Well, I guess she needs one, but why does it have to be you? It’s not fair she gets to live with you all the time and we don’t.”

“You’re right, it’s not fair. But it’s not JoJo’s fault. And that’s something you’re gonna learn now that your older is sometimes things aren’t fair and it’s nobody’s fault.”

Jordan felt awful for all the change thrust on these boys, not only getting used to the split, but now a whole new blended family. They did it wrong, probably, really messy and fast and terribly wrong, and yet, this family, all five of them together, was everything he ever needed. He needed this to work, just run with it and hope for the best.



“It might be fun,” Jordan offered. “Didn’t you ever want a little sister?”

Felix scrunched up his face. “No. What do we need a sister for?”

“Well, did you ever think you might have even more little siblings? Some kids come from little families, but some kids come from really big families. What if I’m the dad of a lot of kids someday?”

Felix cringed further. “Eww, is Maria gonna have a baby?”



“Not yet. Wait, what do you know about babies?”

“Babies are weird,” Felix said.

“I never really met a baby before,” Milo said.

“Okay, well you can think about that for a while. It won’t be very soon.”

They nodded, seeming satisfied with that answer. And Jordan let out a tense breath, feeling finally that the questions had all been answered. He hoped, at least.



“I guess I should get you back to your mom now,” Jordan said.

“Aw, not yet,” they both pleaded.

“Do we get to see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” Jordan said.

“Next week?”

“I’ll be here next week.”

“Next month, and after that?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be here.”

———

“You’re home!” Lou yelled as she bombed through the door of Maria’s suburban townhouse. “What? You’re early! You said closer to Christmas. What happened?”

“Eh,” Maria stalled. There was always a turning point as a relationship deepened and you no longer told your sister absolutely every last thing about a guy. Maria was torn between wanting to respect Jordan’s privacy and the natural urge to seek advice from her big sister—it was a bit of a lonely place to be. “Surprise! We’re back early, we wanted it to be a surprise.”

But Maria would always be Lou’s baby sister, so Lou swept her up off the ground in a bear hug. Even though, to be honest, Maria was probably the heavier of the two as full grown women now. Lou liked the gym, and Maria liked pancakes.

“Me, me!” Johanna shrieked.

Lou did try, but stooped low to squeeze her beloved niece instead. “Next time, monkey. I think I just threw out my back a little.”



“So where is this elusive boyfriend of yours?”

“Not here,” Maria said. “Hell be back soon. He’s seeing his boys. It’s been a while.”

Jordan felt bad for dropping them at the house and leaving them alone so quickly, but at least Maria’s townhome wasn’t an unfamiliar place. Even if some spiders moved in during the months they’d been away. There was no food inside since they’d been gone for two months. And he stranded them without a car. “Can you call Lou?”

So that was what she did, and Lou brought takeout for dinner.



“How long are you guys here?”

“I don’t know,” Maria answered.

“A week, a month? More months?”

“Lou, I don’t know anything right now. I don’t think he knows, either.”

That was wrong—he knew. He said they were staying for good. Final answer. He was going to file for joint custody, fifty-fifty. You couldn’t be much of a nomad when you were tied to Milwaukee, Wisconsin for half of your life. But could he really give it all up? That was what Maria didn’t know.

On the bright side, Maria dearly missed her stupid butt of a sister, who also lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She felt a little guilty for being so happy to be home.

“You’re gonna help clear out the spiders for me. I saw a giant one in the upstairs shower.”




A couple hours later, Jordan dropped off his boys and returned to what was now his new home. Maria added him to the lease, and he lived here now. It felt odd. How funny to think all those months ago, he would sneak up these stairs after JoJo was asleep for their first sleepovers. Here he was again, sneaking up the stairs trying not to wake JoJo. He didn’t have a key yet. But the door was unlocked, and Maria sat in the dining room talking quietly with her sister. He joined them.




Lou looked at him suspiciously. “It’s funny, all the times I’ve seen you before, I had to pretend like my sister didn’t have the hugest, most embarrassing crush on you. Cat’s out of the bag now huh?”

“Your sister is the least embarrassing thing about my life,” Jordan said.

“Okay. I’ll buy that,” Lou said, which felt like a compliment and an insult all at once. “But I guess I better head out. Watch Mom and Dad come over to visit tomorrow. You’ll need to rest up for that.”



They did as Lou suggested and took themselves straight to bed. It had been a long few days, heavy with emotions, and heavy also with the physical labor of moving back across the country at breakneck speed. Maria climbed onto the bed first, and Jordan laughed as he flopped down over her lap.

“What’s funny?”

“We ended up right back where we started,” he said.

“Well, sometimes it happens like that. I’m happy you’re here.” She smiled. “So, how did it go?”

He let out a heavy sigh, feeling so much. “The boys? Or?”

“All of it.”

“We had fun,” he said. “The new skate park by the harbor is really nice. A lot was closed for the snow, but we had fun.”

“And…”



She meant, how did it go with Colette. Maria knew everything now, so there was no point trying to hide that seeing her tonight, after that phone call, after so many months, must have been a big deal.

“She apologized,” he said. “She said she didn’t mean it. She said sorry.”

“Oh. And how do you feel about that?”

“Heh, you’re going to get so sick of me telling you things.”

Maria shook her head. “Tell me.”

“Mad?” he said, unsure. “Like she can just erase that she was a monster to me for ten years with one sorry, like none of it ever happened? It made me mad.”

“That sounds fair,” Maria said. “Forgiveness takes time. If you even want to forgive her, that is.”

“I don’t know. If she’s really trying to be a better person, maybe she deserves a chance. I have to deal with her either way for the next nine years. She’d have a lot of work to do, but, I don’t know…”




He’d done most of the driving today and then went straight out with his boys. He was tired, his voice already drifting off. She stroked his hair and he was a goner. This conversation was paused for now.

She loved that he talked to her now, but she felt out of her depths. She wondered if he needed better advice than she knew how to give. She hoped she wasn’t doing it wrong.

She laid beside him and he fell asleep deeply in the safety of her arms.

This monster of a woman was part of his life forever, and she still had her claws deep under his skin, which meant she was part of Maria’s life now too, like it or not. For the next nine years, at least. Colette could snap him in half if she wanted to, and Maria hated her for that.



Meanwhile, across town, Colette had Milo’s phone. The thing was, you really had to check the kids’ phones these days, at their age, if you wanted to be any sort of responsible parent. Milo’s phone was foul—Cheetos fingerprints on the screen protector, which was scratched to pieces, dust in all the ports. She loathed to touch it, but you had to check to see how much money they were spending on app games, or who they were talking to on social media.

Milo only had five friends on here. Mom, Dad, Felix, Zachary Harris from school, and Maria?

Maria. Maria from work? Maria, the tutor at the arts center? Maria who made the best grilled cheese and whose giggles sounded like music? Maria with the ruby red lips and Jordan’s mouth all over her skin in these photos she posted last week: Maria is with Jordan Graham at Tartosa Beach, California, 4 photos.

Her name is Maria and you don’t know her.

Colette was hearing a whole lot about this woman she didn’t know lately. Maybe it was time they made an official introduction.



Before Maria could sleep too, she heard a ping on her phone.

She checked it. An unknown number, but there was no question who this was.

You might be fucking him now, but he knows I’m right. I’m always right. The boys know I’m right. It’ll be easier for us all if you learn that, too.

Maria mouth hung agape. “That bitch!”



Colette knew she had to do better for her family, the ones who deserved her love and patience and understanding. There may come a day when her civility grows bigger than that, but it’s not going to be today.

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footnotes: remembering that Milo knows JoJo and Maria better than Felix does.

Please enjoy some outtakes & extras from #5.5 and 5.6!

“It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem, it’s me…”

I always think of Joe Goldberg when I hear that song, but lately I feel like it belongs to Colette a little, too.

“I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror.” 

^ Yes, Miss Swift! Yes! 🔥

And with this chapter, book 5: the fairytale is complete!

It was a rollercoaster of hopes and disappointments and long-overdue resolutions, and I hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride!

Boxes and Squares will take a little break for the rest of this year and will return with book 6 in early 2026. In the meantime, we will have some intermission short stories (Lou & Ingrid), gameplay fluff, and visit some other gameplay families, too. 

Thank you for reading! ❤️