The Cousins

Aubrey and Milly go to a bakery in town and discuss whether or not to tell anyone about Jonah. Aubrey doesn’t care if Jonah is a fake and admits that “Jonah North is a distant fourth on the list of things [she’s] worried about” (150). She is more concerned about answering her dad’s increasingly aggressive messages about Mildred, the fact that she and Thomas seem to be silently breaking up, and spending time with her grandmother soon. She notices a photo on the wall of her father as a teenager holding “the ugliest painting [she’s] ever seen” (153), which was awarded a blue ribbon by her grandmother at the first-ever Gull Cove Island Local Artists Competition. She bumps into Hazel at the register, who renews the conversation about interviewing the Story children. Aubrey gets her number, then decides to call her father, who is cold and distant. Aubrey knows that “he’s punishing [her] for avoiding him all week” and that when her father is annoyed, he “withholds affection and approval to make his disappointment clear” (157). Adam scolds his daughter for not being more proactive, and Aubrey lashes out at her father, revealing that he impregnated her swim coach. Aubrey hangs up, starts crying, and explains to Milly that she was the one who introduced her father and her swim coach, so she feels responsible for destroying their family.