In the aftermath of the events of Easter, Juliet Pearson, at just eight years old, was questioning everything. This after her father, Dylan, had done something that had very much confused her. Made her endlessly uneasy. And all because, like many men, he had never been discreet. Tending toward careless, loud behavior that put a spotlight on everything he did. As was the case at the Easter gathering Juliet’s family had been invited to by a friend of Juliet’s mother, Rachel.

Although they had traditionally always gone to Juliet’s aunt’s house for Easter, this year, Auntie Eve and her family had decided to go out of town this year. Probably because they were fed up with hosting Easter. So Rachel was eager to accept Robin Donnelly’s invitation when it cropped up a few days before. As the only person in their family who went to church on Sundays, Easter meant more to Rachel than it did to Dylan. And, of course, Juliet was too young to have much “zeal” for religion. While her older sister, Ana, was too apathetic, at sixteen, to have much enthusiasm for it either. In fact, it was a wonder that Ana could even be corralled to attend the event that the Pearson family had been invited to.

Rachel was more surprised than any of them that Ana had “conceded” to attending, having evidently decided the instant she became a teenager that everything was now “optional” for her. And both Rachel and Dylan were honestly too terrified of her mood swings to bother with protesting, let alone scolding her when she refused to do something. In truth, Rachel was almost suspicious of Ana’s potential underlying motives for wanting to come with them instead of disappearing to some friend’s house. One of many friends that seemed to crop up out of nowhere of late, and that Rachel had, accordingly, never met before. For all Rachel knew, maybe Ana had a falling out with one of them, which meant, for the time being, all of them.

Whatever the case may have been, Rachel had little time to consider it, instead concerning herself with the business of both preparing a side dish to bring (she was going with a “gourmet-ified” recipe she had for green beans) and herself. No small feat for Rachel these days, who felt as if she was getting uglier by the minute. Which meant it took her far longer than it used to in the bathroom to reach a state that she viewed as “normal.” It was times like these when, she was ashamed to admit, she was actually jealous of her teenage daughter, who looked so effortlessly “fresh-faced” all the time, yet still spent hours getting ready even though she didn’t need to. Hours that could have been spent doing something so much more worthwhile. Like, for instance, actually spending time with her sister rather than treating her as if she were some kind of disease to be avoided at all costs. Rachel could see how it was affecting Juliet, who she knew was already a sensitive child to begin with. A quality that Rachel admired as much as she worried about, for she knew it would mean Juliet would struggle in life.

What Rachel couldn’t have known was that her daughter’s sensitivity is what would end up tainting Easter for all of them for the rest of their lives. For it was her sighting of Dylan on top of Robin, humping her like a rabbit (how festive), in the Donnellys’ guest bedroom that she had wandered into upstairs that forever changed how she would think of Easter. When Juliet saw what was happening, she somehow knew better than to make her presence known, intuitively aware of the fact that it was wrong for her to be witnessing this as much as it was wrong for them to be doing it. So she allowed herself a few seconds to peer at them from behind the door she had partially opened (and which they hadn’t even noticed or heard in the midst of being distracted by their throes of passion) while in search of something “magical.” For that’s what it was to be a child arbitrarily exploring a space while unattended. Until any potential for magic was ripped away from her in that instant of discovery.

When Juliet brought it up to her mother as she was tucking her in that night, she asked, “Mom, is Dad supposed to be on top of other ladies?”

Juliet could see her mother’s face turn as white as a bunny’s fur in that instant, and knew that she must have said something wrong. She immediately wished she could take it back, but she couldn’t. So she reached her arms out to give Rachel a hug, not sure what else to do. Rachel returned the embrace, but Juliet could sense something was off now. That her question had activated an unexpected response. Not a favorable one. Rachel finally whispered in Juliet’s ear, “Good night, my little girl.” Which still left Juliet’s question unanswered. How was she ever going to know now if her father was “supposed to be” on top of other ladies or not?

The next morning, Juliet began to understand that some questions didn’t need to be verbally answered—actions could speak louder than words. Which is precisely what they were doing when she entered the kitchen at around nine-thirty, with no one having woken her up as they usually would have to ensure she was ready for school on time. The kitchen, to Juliet’s surprise, was empty, as the entire house seemed to be. She could scarcely believe her eyes. This had never happened before. What was she to do? How was she to proceed? Before she could calculate her next move, she felt two hands on her shoulders and the sound of Ana shouting, “Boo!”

Juliet jumped, giving her sister the desired effect as she started to laugh. “You really did it this time, didn’t you Juli?”

Juliet’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I was going to gather my own information at that party, but it looks like you saw everything and confirmed it for me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The only reason I agreed to go to that stupid party yesterday was because I had my suspicions about Dad and Robin. But I never thought they’d actually fuck under the same roof as Mom.”

Ana was saying a lot of things that were kind of making Juliet’s head explode. She didn’t really understand any of it. Nor did she want to, because she could tell that it was bad and that it was going to have ramifications.

Seeing her sister’s eyes start to well up, Ana suddenly remembered what an asshole teenager she was being and decided to rein it in. “I’m sorry, Juli, I didn’t mean to upset you. Come’ere.” She pulled Juliet in for a hug, realizing she couldn’t even recall the last time she had shown her sister affection in this way. It briefly overcame her with a separate wave of sadness. For she herself could scarcely understand why becoming a teenager had turned her so cold, bitter and generally hardened. As she was toward Dylan after months of suspecting that he had been cheating on Rachel. All the classic signs were there: working late, getting flustered when he got caught in a lie, being evasive, only being in a room in body but not mind. Ana knew that Rachel could see these signs too, but refused to acknowledge them. And that, in turn, made her resent Rachel as much as Dylan. Which was part of why she had been acting surlier toward her lately, and even hesitated to bother proving the truth to her mother since she seemed so keen to ignore what was right in front of her face.

But when Easter had come around, and with it, Robin’s audacity to invite them over and essentially rub Rachel’s face in the affair, Ana could tolerate it no longer. Her plan had been to observe Dylan and Robin from afar, lying in wait for the inevitable moment when they would secret away together. However, what she hadn’t counted on was someone’s hot son at the party diverting all her attention until, before Ana knew it, she was the one secreting away with another. Thereby missing her opportunity to spy effectively on Dylan and Robin. So she supposed it was “lucky” for her that Juliet was so stealth that no one noticed her disappearance from the “festivities” for children that were being offered in the backyard—from face painting to the presence of an Easter bunny to an Easter egg hunt, all of it was designed to keep the children occupied while the adults got their jollies inside. Though some, like Dylan and Robin, were getting a lot jollier than others. And it wasn’t even fucking Christmas.

To that point, all Ana could think about was how “second rate” Easter was as a holiday. An obvious pale shell of Christmas. Even though, theoretically, Jesus’ resurrection should have been much more of a big to-do than his birth. After all, how often does someone “reanimate” like that? Not that it really happened or anything, but still, in Ana’s mind it ought to have been considered more “special” than Christmas, yet, increasingly, it had turned into a “nothing” holiday for many people. Especially since it never merited getting a day off during the week, therefore making it naturally inferior to Christmas on that count as well. Some of this crossed Ana’s mind at the party—when she wasn’t sticking her tongue down the hot guy’s throat. His name was Sean, and she was certain they probably weren’t going to meet up again. He went to a different school and was also a jock. It would never work out.

As Juliet continued to burrow her face into Ana’s shoulder, she was brought back to the moment. Not sure how gentle or gruff she could (or should) be when she told her sister that Dylan had been sent packing this morning and that Rachel was currently consulting with a divorce lawyer. And it was all ultimately because Juliet saw the wrong kind of “rabbit activity” on Easter. Of course, Ana would have to present it to her a little more softly than that, though what she wanted to tell her was that she should have just stayed in the backyard where the grown man dressed as a rabbit was instead of walking in on the grown man fucking like a rabbit. Then again, Ana had to admit that Juliet had done all of them a solid, sparing them from another second of tiptoeing around the deceit that had been going on for at least the past year. So, in that sense, it was a “happy Easter” indeed.