Instructions for Dancing

Evie can tell something’s wrong when she returns home from school, as Grace is on the patio and Danica is chatting with their father on the phone. Grace grips the doorframe and says her father will explain. Though still upset with her father, Evie listens to him declare that as much as he wanted to tell her in person, he’s going to marry Shirley, the woman he left Grace for. Evie realizes she’d secretly hoped he’d get back together with her mother, and that he had to tell her this news over the phone because she cut him out of her life. She doesn’t respond, until her father insists on her coming to the wedding. Evie snaps that she’s not attending and can’t be forced to; he keeps talking, but Evie hangs up.

Danica is disapproving, and Grace reiterates that their father wants Evie to attend. The former asks why Evie is always upset at their father, stating their parents simply fell out of love. Evie doesn’t share her father’s affair. She instead begs her mother not to force her to attend the wedding, but Grace encourages her to think about it.

Evie spends the night alone, sulking and not responding to her friends’ texts.