The Most Fun We Ever Had

Marilyn and David decide to have another baby when they notice how tall their three girls have gotten. Gillian is Marilyn’s doctor, and Marilyn finds this a little uncomfortable because Gillian is David’s colleague. David cannot make it to one of the appointments, and Marilyn begins to cry because pregnancy is making her feel lonely and exhausted.

The family goes out to eat to celebrate a play that Wendy joined because she had a crush on one of the boys involved in the production. Wendy tries to tell her family about the experience, but Marilyn is in a lot of pain with contractions. Wendy is grossed out by an explanation of what practice contractions are. Wendy remembers the story of her birth and how she was large as a baby. Tonight is the first time she purposely skips a meal as she thinks about her parents having sex and her mother giving birth. Later, Marilyn feels one of her “fleeting moments of absolute pleasure. Stockholm syndrome” (241).

Grace is born, and Marilyn bleeds profusely from placenta accreta. David cries as he holds Grace and considers how his impulsive decision has endangered his wife’s life. Now he is facing the prospect of being a single father to four daughters. The girls come to visit, and David goes into the bathroom, where Wendy hears him crying.

Violet and Matt do not have much time to spend together because of his career and their young children. The two begin to argue about how to load the dishwasher, and Violet realizes that while she tries to make the opposite decisions of what her mother made, in the end, she is no happier. She thinks that her mother’s story, at least, sounds poetic.

Wendy is embarrassed by her parents. She asks her mom to take in her homecoming dress because it is now too big. Marilyn is concerned about Wendy’s weight, but Wendy says she is fine. David has to work a shift that night, and when he comes home, Marilyn tells him that Wendy came home drunk.

Jonah meets Ryan and realizes that Liza was kissing someone else in the car outside Marilyn and David’s house. Jonah tells Ryan that things are going well at home. He likes working with David around the house. Ryan explains that he and Liza have been together about a decade but are not married. Jonah thinks they must have an open relationship but Ryan says they are not swingers. When Ryan asks why Jonah brought up the subject, he tells him about seeing Liza kissing another man.

It is Grace’s graduation ceremony from preschool, and Wendy refuses to go despite her mother begging her to. Wendy tells her mom that Grace does not even know what graduation is, and Marilyn grounds Wendy. Later, Marilyn hears Wendy talking excitedly to Grace about graduation. Marilyn reminds Wendy that she is grounded, but Wendy leaves. After the ceremony, Marilyn walks in on Wendy having sex with Aaron Bhargava. Marilyn is disappointed because she thought her daughters would be more open with her about sex than she was with her dad, but she had not known that Wendy was sexually active. One night when Wendy comes home, she asks her mom if she can sleep in her bed, and her mother agrees. Marilyn knows she has been drinking. Both mother and daughter apologize to each other. The next morning, she cannot wake Wendy.

Violet wants to talk to Ryan, but he refuses. He packs his car and is heading to the Upper Peninsula for work. She does not want him to leave her, but she also knows that perhaps this had to happen because she could not care for both Ryan and a baby. She realizes that her baby will not have the comfort of growing up in a two-parent household.

Marilyn and David are at the hospital with Wendy. David thinks they should head home, but Marilyn refuses to leave. She was unable to wake up Wendy the morning before. David When David tells Marilyn that Wendy will be fine, she tells him that it has been a long time since Wendy was okay. They bicker, and when she mentions that she spends every day with Wendy, he points out what happened despite that. She tells him that she already blames herself and that she would do anything to help Wendy. He realizes that his desire for Wendy to be okay is even stronger than his love for Marilyn.

Wendy invites her mom over to her house, and they argue. Wendy thinks about how she tried to make herself appealing to men like her father, going so far as to engage in fellatio with a boy named Spencer in front of other people when he told her to. This was the only way she felt she could remain part of that group. Her life is different now because her financial resources give her access to worlds that were previously closed off to her. Marilyn tells Wendy that she is the strongest of the four sisters, and she admits that she perhaps was not as affectionate as she should have been when Wendy was little, but she attributes this in part to Wendy’s self-sufficiency.

When Wendy tells Marilyn to look in a drawer for some Advil, Marilyn sees some files, including a small file labeled “Ivy,” which lists a date of death. Marilyn regrets not paying more attention to Wendy and contributing to Wendy’s eating disorder.

David calls his clinic to tell them that he will not be in because he is going to have dinner with Gillian. Gillian tells David that she no longer has any hobbies. Meanwhile, Violet works hard to get into college, and she asks Marilyn why she never finished school. Violent considers her mom to be intelligent and well-read and she asks her if she ever wanted anything for herself. When Violet keeps pressing, her mother tells her that things are not as black and white as Violet believes them to be.

Liza shows up at Wendy’s house to tell her that Ryan left. Liza admits that she doesn’t know if she wants him to come back. Wendy says that their parents are so happy that it makes her consider putting her head in the oven, and Liza tells her that people would understand if she did.

Grace has a crush on Ben, and she has stopped communicating with her family as frequently to more easily keep up her deception. Her parents call one night, and her mother starts to talk about Christmas, but Grace tells her that she is going to go skiing instead of coming home for Christmas. This isn’t true, but she doesn’t want to have to lie to their faces about law school.

David and Gillian have been having dinner together frequently. The two share an attraction, but they both agree that while there is something between them, it cannot go anywhere. When David gets home, Marilyn confronts him, having learned that he hasn’t been volunteering his normal hours at the clinic for the past six weeks. The two sleep apart. When Marilyn falls asleep, he goes in and sees that she has been crying. He realizes all that Marilyn has taken on in their family and also in helping to care for his ailing dad, and now he has just given her another problem. Liza is home that night and hears the argument between her parents, including the repeated mention of Gillian’s name. She wonders if her father has had an affair.

Wyatt is preparing for a Star of the Week performance, and he asks his mom if Jonah can come. Violet tries to make excuses as to why he cannot, and she wonders why she is not pleased that Wyatt likes Jonah. The mother and son practice the song he will play and she will sing. She will join him in the performance because he is too scared to do it on his own.

Marilyn knows that David would never cheat on her, but she still does not know how to react to what she has learned. She goes to David’s office and talks to Gillian, who assures her that nothing physical happened between them. After an argument with David, Marilyn goes to David’s father’s home to help him, and he tells her that Wendy has been coming to visit him since she was released from the hospital. Wendy does not want to go to college, and her mother tells her she will pay her to watch Grace.

Liza stays behind and watches Jonah while Marilyn and David go out of town. Marilyn and David talk about the job they did as parents. They text Liza, telling her to call them immediately. Jonah has been in a minor accident after Liza let him use her car without considering that he is only 15 years old.

David’s father dies. David realizes that he and his wife are both orphans now. Grace asks him what death means, and Wendy asks to be one of her grandfather’s pallbearers.