Windfall

by Jennifer E. Smith

  I’m sure she knew my dad would try his best. But she couldn’t have known that he’d follow her so soon, just over a year later, and that Uncle Jake and Aunt Sofia would have to be the ones to step in, to fill those gaps the best they could.

  And they tried, all of them. For that first year she was gone, my dad left his own notes in my lunch box with little doodles of penguins across the bottom, the only thing he knew how to draw. And later it turned out Leo was pretty good at making funny faces out of breakfast foods. Aunt Sofia was the one to tell me what I needed to know about boys, and whenever I was sick Uncle Jake would stay home from work to bring me bowl after bowl of chicken noodle soup.

  This brand of kindness, this closing of the circle around me, it’s more than just love. It’s a kind of luck too, to have these people in my life.

  But it’s not the same as if my mom was here. How could it be?

  And now—now I have to do this without her too.

  I swallow hard, pressing my hands together in my lap. Aunt Sofia is still watching me, her eyes steady and warm, but I can’t seem to finish the sentence.

  I want…

  I want…

  I want…

  It’s like something inside me has crashed, and to my horror the words bubbling up in my throat, desperate and unbidden, are these: I want my mom.

  But I don’t say it.

  “I want Stanford,” I whisper instead, and Aunt Sofia nods. Across the quad, a tour group is moving slowly in our direction. The guide walks backward, gesturing with his hands, trailed by even sets of eager-looking parents and bored-looking kids. We watch their halting progress for a little while before she turns back to me.

  “It’s no secret that we’d love to have you closer,” she says, her eyes shining. “I only have two little ducklings. And even though they’re not so little anymore, I’m always going to want to keep an eye on them. You have to know that.”

  All I can do is nod; to my surprise I feel a tug of sadness at this. In all my daydreams about Stanford, I’ve thought only of going home again. Somehow it didn’t fully sink in that I’d be leaving home too.

  “But if Stanford is what you want, then we’re behind you,” she continues, reaching over and placing a hand on top of mine. “Always.”

  “Thank you,” I say, feeling dazed.

  “And I want you to know I didn’t bring you here to make a case for Northwestern, though I do think you’d love it. They have amazing programs in philosophy and literature and…” She stops abruptly. “Well, that’s not the point. I just wanted to make sure you saw that there are other places out there. Other options. Other ways to be happy. Because that’s all we want. For you to be happy.”

  I’m reminded of the days right after my dad’s funeral, when Aunt Sofia was the one to stay behind, packing up the house and tying up all the loose ends because Uncle Jake couldn’t bear to do it. Those first few nights she’d wait on the other side of the door while I cried, her voice muffled as she spoke to me. She never said You’ll be okay the way so many other adults did. Instead it was always simply You’re okay, as if this was an inarguable fact, as if she knew something I didn’t.

  And I find myself repeating this now, though I have no idea whether it’s true. Even so, I try to say it like she used to, like it’s a certainty, a fact. “I’m okay.”

  She smiles, and I realize then why it’s been so hard to ask her about the money. It’s because I know she’ll tell me the truth.

  “Aunt Sofe,” I say, looking at my hands. “Can I ask you a question?”

  She nods. “Of course.”

  “Were you guys upset when I didn’t take the money?”

  First she looks confused. Then her expression shifts into something more startled, before finally settling into amusement. “The lottery money?”

  I nod, unable to meet her eye. “I turned it down without even asking you and Uncle Jake, and you guys have done so much for me, and paid for everything all these years.”

  “Alice,” she says, scooting closer so she can put an arm around me. “I hope you know that not only do we not expect or want anything from you, we’d happily pay to keep you. It’s been a privilege having you with us.”

  I laugh with relief, but it comes out wetly, like a sob.

  “And you know,” she continues, “that you’re as much my daughter as Leo is my son. Maybe I don’t say that enough.”

  “No,” I say quietly. “You do.”

  “We always wanted more kids,” she says, and when I look at her I’m surprised to see that her eyes are damp. “Always. But after Leo, it just never happened for us, and then after so many years of hoping and trying, you came along.”

  “A total mess of a nine-year-old,” I say with a smile. “Just what you wanted.”

  Aunt Sofia shakes her head. “That’s the thing. You were exactly what we wanted. I mean it, Alice. Losing your parents was unbearable for us too. But there was also this hole in our family, and you were the one to fill it, and that’s always weighed on me, because—” She hesitates. “Well, it’s not easy, you know? To get the thing you want most in the world in the worst way possible.”

  Her words buzz through me, filling my head like static. I’m not sure what to think; I’m half-reassured and half-devastated by all this, half-comforted and half-wrecked.

  “So,” she continues, taking a long breath, “I’ve always tried to make sure you don’t feel like we’re trying to replace them. But even though you don’t call us Mom and Dad, you should know that’s how we think of ourselves. You’re their daughter, and you always will be. But we hope you feel like you’re ours too.” She dabs at her eyes with her finger. “And it’s never been a burden, financially or otherwise. In fact, it’s an honor.”

  I nod, my throat too thick for words. Because right then, I don’t feel like an island or even a peninsula.

  I feel utterly landlocked in the best possible way.

  “Anyway,” she says, wiping her eyes, “my concern with the money has nothing to do with me and Jake. It’s about you. I just want to make sure you’ve really thought hard about it, and that it won’t be something you’ll regret later on. Because it’s a lot.”

  “I know,” I admit. “Leo thinks I’m nuts.”

  “That’s because Leo would take it in a heartbeat.” She raises her eyebrows. “Honestly? So would Jake. So would most people.”

  “What about you?”

  “It’s hard to say. I guess you never really know until you’re in that situation.”

  “But?” I ask, tilting my head.

  “But,” she says, “I think my instinct would’ve been the same as yours. It just seems like a lot, doesn’t it? And it must come with an awful lot of strings attached.”

  “Yes,” I say, feeling a rush of gratitude, because that’s exactly what I said to Leo, exactly what I’ve been thinking ever since Teddy and I dug the ticket out of the garbage that snowy day. I didn’t know what a relief it would be, to talk to someone who doesn’t think my decision was a monumentally stupid one.

  “When my parents came over from Argentina, they made a life out of nothing,” Aunt Sofia says. “And Jake and I have worked really hard to make a life for you and Leo. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. And I happen to think it’s a pretty good life. Even without millions and millions of dollars.”

  “Me too,” I say, and I mean it. I feel lucky that my parents left me enough money for college, and maybe for a few years beyond if I’m smart with it. But I realize now that I don’t want a safety net. At least not a financial one. I want to make it on my own too.

  “I know you had your own reasons for turning it down,” Aunt Sofia says. “And I totally support whatever you want to do, as long as you’re sure.”

  “I am,” I say, then hesitate. “I think I am.”

  She looks at me carefully. “You think?”

  “I don’t want it myself,” I say. “I really don’t.”

  “But?”

  “I guess I w
ish Teddy was doing something more with it,” I say, the words tumbling out in a rush. “Something better. It’s so much money. Even a little bit of it could help so many people, so it’s just hard to—”

  “Oh, hon,” Aunt Sofia says, shaking her head. “You can’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a kid whose family has had some pretty rough financial problems, and he just won an ungodly amount of money. You can’t expect him to do everything right. Or to do everything you would do. Because it’s not you. It’s him.”

  “I know,” I say. “It’s just hard.”

  “It’s not your job to worry about it,” she says, drawing me close again. “Your only job is to be his friend, which I already know you can do.”

  I don’t say anything. All I do is nod, hoping she’s right.

  The race doesn’t begin until eighth period, but all of Mr. Dill’s physics students are excused from afternoon classes so we can put the finishing touches on our boats. The rest of the seniors always grumble about this, since they only get to skip one period to watch, but as I stand at the edge of the swimming pool, the air warm and stuffy and thick with chlorine, I’m starting to suspect they have the better end of the deal.

  Around us the concrete edges of the pool are lined with boats, which range from the impossibly professional to the downright raftlike. Some of them look like they could make it through the Bermuda Triangle, others like they might crumble under the strain of a light drizzle. Some are painted brilliant reds and yellows and greens, with elaborate cardboard sails and rudders, while others could easily be mistaken for oversized pizza boxes.

  Ours is somewhere in between. It’s squat and square and covered with tape, but it looks sturdy enough. We didn’t have time to paint it, but last night, as we finished shoring up the sides, Teddy decided we needed to give it a name.

  “It’s bad luck if you don’t,” he insisted. “How about the Teddy?”

  I groaned. “I think we can do better than that.”

  “Nobody can do better than the Teddy,” he joked, but when I rolled my eyes at him, he shrugged. “Okay, how about the Sink or Swim?”

  “A little too close to home.”

  “The Sea You Later?”

  “Too cute.”

  “Row, Row, Row Your Boat?”

  “Too long.”

  “I’ve got it,” he said finally, his eyes lighting up. “The Lucky Duck.”

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of tempting fate to put the word lucky on it?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff,” he said. “Besides, I just won the lottery. If I can’t throw around the word lucky after that, what’s the use?”

  But now, seeing the painted letters on the back of our boat makes my stomach twist. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that luck can change in an instant.

  Teddy pulls off another piece of tape to reinforce one of the corners, and I watch him stick out his tongue in concentration as he folds it carefully around the edge.

  “So is she seaworthy?” I ask, sitting down on the bleachers beside him.

  “You tell me.” He pats the side of it, making the whole thing shudder. “You designed it.”

  “Then you redesigned it,” I remind him, because though he held up his end of the bargain—we spent much of the weekend working on the boat together—he also made about a thousand suggestions for subtle improvements on my plans, insisting that it would increase our speed.

  “Winning isn’t the point,” I told him. “We just need to make it across.”

  He only frowned at me. “Winning is always the point.”

  Behind us two girls from our class walk by, and I hear them whisper something about a yacht, then start to laugh. I can pretty much guess the rest of it, and I suspect Teddy can too, because he stiffens but doesn’t say anything.

  The air around the pool is heavy and damp, and all the many voices of our classmates bounce off the tiled walls, making everything feel too loud and weirdly distorted. Already other students are filing in through the blue double doors at the other end of the bleachers. Teddy rips at the tape with his teeth, then spits out a stringy piece.

  “I think it’s almost time,” I say, and he nods, but I can tell he’s distracted by something over my shoulder, and I turn to see two of his friends from the basketball team, J.B. and Chris, walking over, one of them sunburnt, the other wearing a Hawaiian shirt. They look like they just stepped off the beach. Teddy watches them with a dazed expression; it must be the first time he’s seen them since Mexico.

  “Dude,” says J.B., extending a fist, which Teddy bumps dutifully with his own. “I can’t believe you missed the rest of the week. It was awesome. I could’ve lived on that beach forever. I almost didn’t come back.”

  “Well, we sort of had to,” Chris says, “since we ran out of funds after you took off.”

  Teddy frowns. “I left you guys a credit card.”

  “Yeah, well, you know how it goes, man,” J.B. says. “The tab just kept growing and growing—”

  “And growing,” admits Chris, who at least has the decency to look a little embarrassed by this. “Things got kind of out of hand.”

  “We ended up maxing out the card,” J.B. says, “which really sucked. For the last two days we had to give up all the top-shelf stuff and start eating tamales from that cart by the pool. It was pretty rough.”

  “Sounds like it,” I say, and they both look over at me as if they didn’t until that moment realize I was there.

  Teddy’s gone slightly pale. “You maxed it out?”

  “Well, Mikey crashed the Jet Ski, which didn’t help, and we got table service at a few of the clubs, and there was the whole thing with the jeep we rented—”

  “Sorry, dude,” J.B. says, giving Teddy a slap on the back. “But it’s just a drop in the bucket for you these days, right?”

  “Right,” Teddy mumbles, his eyes on the turquoise surface of the pool.

  “Anyway, good luck with”—J.B. gestures at our boat—“this.”

  “It’s no Jet Ski, but I’m sure it’ll do,” Chris says, and they both laugh as they head off to join the rest of their friends in the bleachers, which are filling up fast.

  “They’re jerks,” I say, turning to Teddy once they’re gone.

  He looks away. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine,” I say, suddenly outraged on his behalf. “They’re taking advantage of you, and—”

  “It’s fine,” he says again, more firmly this time.

  He looks up at the bleachers then, and I follow his gaze to where his father is lifting a hand to wave at us. He’s wearing the same suit and tie, but he’s shaved, and without the stubble he looks more like Teddy, an older, thicker version of the boy sitting beside me.

  “He came,” Teddy says, clearly relieved. “I wasn’t sure…”

  There’s no need for him to finish that sentence. We both know the part that’s been left unsaid: he wasn’t sure if his dad would actually come, wasn’t sure if he’d still be in town, wasn’t sure he’d actually follow through with a promise for once.

  But he has, and I can see the flush of color in Teddy’s cheeks as he turns his attention back to the boat. It doesn’t matter how badly he’s been disappointed in the past. It doesn’t matter that he’s spent six years being alternately heartbroken and furious. It doesn’t matter that his dad has missed a hundred football and baseball and basketball games. It only matters that he’s here now, and I can tell by the set of Teddy’s jaw that he’s newly determined to win this race.

  “You ready?” he asks, and for his sake I muster a smile.

  “Ready,” I say, wondering if this is true.

  By the time it’s our turn, not a single boat has sunk, and you can almost feel the crowd waiting for it. They’re tired of watching a series of makeshift cardboard contraptions successfully bob across the high school swimming pool. What they want is fireworks. What they want is a catastrophe. What they want is a sh
ow.

  As Teddy and I step up to the edge of the pool, a murmur passes through the bleachers. The audience has been growing increasingly noisy all afternoon, but this is something different. There’s only one other boat in our heat, a sleek-looking vessel that Mitchell Kelly and Alexis Lovett have painted to look like a submarine, periscope and all. But I know instinctively that the shift in energy has nothing to do with them. This is about Teddy, and it’s clear from the set of his shoulders that he knows it too.

  A jeering voice breaks clear of the din: “Last time you’ll have to paddle, Moneybags!”

  This is followed by a roar of laughter, and Teddy hunches down further, looking bewildered. All his life he’s been the good guy, the unlikely hero, the one everyone roots for on the football field or the basketball court.

  Now his story has shifted. He’s no longer the underdog. Instead he’s suddenly the luckiest guy in the room, in the school, maybe even in the whole city. He’s the luckiest guy anybody knows, and there’s no need to root for someone like that to win. There’s nowhere for him to go but down, and that’s where they want to take him. Because guys like that—lucky guys, fortunate guys—they don’t need any support. And the audience knows it.

  I’m crouched at the edge of the pool, one hand on the boat, which seems flimsier now than it did in our basement. My eyes are already swimming from the chlorine, and the back of my neck prickles; I can almost feel the way the crowd has turned, can feel their impatience for the balance of the world to right itself again, even if it’s just in something as inconsequential as a failed science project.

  I scan the bleachers for Leo because I could really use a thumbs-up from him. But when I finally spot him, his head is turned, watching something higher in the stands. I raise my eyes to see two men on their feet, talking angrily.

  One of them is Teddy’s dad.

  I whip back around to see if Teddy has noticed and find that he’s squinting up in that direction too, his arms slack at his sides, his face a study of indecision.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I say, but he doesn’t answer me.