The Most Fun We Ever Had

Violet has to pick up her son, Wyatt, from preschool soon, but Wendy has summoned her for lunch. Violet realizes that Wendy has experienced the most trauma in the family, but she also knows that her sister likes drama. The last time Violet saw Wendy was at “Second Thanksgiving.” When Violet gets to the restaurant, she is initially hurt to see that her sister invited a man to join them, but she takes one look at the young man and realizes he is the child she gave up for adoption years earlier. She leaves the restaurant.

Later, as Wendy gets ready to go to a fundraiser and smokes a cigarette, she speaks to Miles in her head, which she has been doing ever since he died. She tells Miles that Violet left the restaurant without even speaking to them. As she exhales her last drag, she tells him that she loves him. Later that night, she makes out with a much younger man. She thinks back to the nickname her parents used to call her, Wednesday. At the time she considered it an inappropriate allusion to Wednesday Addams because Wendy was skeletal at the time, but her mother later explained that the nickname originated because Wendy was born on a Wednesday.

Marilyn runs a hardware store, and her life is going well except for the tethers she feels to her family. She realizes that she doesn’t need her husband’s help but she does need him. David is retired and seems down and adrift.

Grace is living in poor circumstances, but she believes this is temporary. She has received a letter from the last law school she applied to, but the envelope is thin. Most of her friends are on successful career paths. Liza calls and tells Grace that she has just achieved tenure at the university where she teaches. Liza is concerned that Ryan, her partner, might not be happy about her achievement. Liza asks Grace about her applications, and Grace tells her that she just got a letter from Oregon about law school, implying that she has gotten in. After she hangs up, Grace reads the rejection letter from Oregon.

Liza considers how her sisters’ various partners over the years have desensitized her parents to unimpressive boyfriends, so they do not give Ryan too much attention. Liza considers him a man-child. The couple moved back to Chicago a year prior so she could teach psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is frustrated with his own career prospects and has stopped trying to find anything, preferring to sleep a lot. She is pained by their lack of a physical relationship. She gets home, and he feels guilty because he can tell she has good news, but he has been crying. She comforts him until he goes to bed. The next morning he makes her a celebratory breakfast.

Violet calls Wendy after three days. Wendy explains that she was curious about Violet’s son, Jonah, and she started investigating. She learned that his adoptive parents died in a car crash when he was young, and he has spent the rest of his life in foster care.

Marilyn is at the Behavioral Science Building at UIC. She meets a man named David Sorenson who she believes is her professor and complains about the B minus she received on her paper. She finally realizes that David is not her professor, and he explains that he let her keep arguing her point instead of correcting her because he likes the way she speaks. He apologizes for misleading her, and she tells him that he can take her out if he helps her find the professor she is looking for.

Hanna, the woman currently caring for Jonah, suggests he tell Violet about his ceramics class. Hanna is proud that Jonah’s ceramics will be displayed at a gallery. Violet is impressed with his mugs, and he chooses a green one with a slight chip to give to her. She gives him $40 in return. She explains to Hanna and Jonah that she grew up nearby and has a law degree, but she is not currently practicing. Violet affirms that her mother is the woman who runs the hardware store, but she asks Hanna and Jonah not to tell her who they are because she doesn’t know about the situation. As Violet leaves, Jonah thinks he will never see her again.

Afterward Violet regrets paying Jonah for the mug; she realizes that the gesture seemed cold. Hanna later tells Violet that she is leaving the country and cannot take Jonah with her because she has to do what is best for her family. Violet explains that she has to do the same.

Violet is still angry at Wendy. She tells Wendy about the situation with Hanna and accuses Wendy of bringing this all into her life. Wendy offers to take Jonah in. Violet goes to her parents and tells them that she has a teenage son. Years ago, when she told them she was living in Paris, she was really at Wendy and Miles’s house, pregnant. Marilyn wonders how she could have believed the story about Paris, but she realizes that while Wendy always concerned them, Violet never gave them any problems. Marilyn is upset that Violet did not come to them at the time. Violet explains that Hanna is leaving, and Marilyn and David offer to take Jonah in, but Violet tells them that Wendy is going to care for him. They are hurt that she didn’t think of asking them, but she explains that she thought they were done with parenting children.

Marilyn believes she has failed her daughters. David remembers something odd that Wendy said at Violet’s wedding years ago. He did not think much about it at the time because Wendy was both unpredictable and drunk. Marilyn asks David if they focused too much on each other and not enough on their daughters.

Marilyn and David have sex under the ginkgo tree on her parents’ property. She has had sex before, but he hasn’t. Marilyn’s father comes upon them, and she tells him that she will talk to him in the morning. David gets accepted to medical school and comes to Marilyn’s house to tell her the news. Both David’s and Marilyn’s mothers died when they were young. David asks Marilyn to marry him.