Time of Our Lives

by Emily Wibberley

  I was going to ask her out for real, which she knew, in the way everyone just knows inevitabilities in love. Then my mom got her diagnosis.

  I disappeared. I didn’t answer Cara’s texts, and then her phone calls. I didn’t run into her at school because it was winter break. I did feel awful. I just knew I could barely balance my schoolwork with the new fears in my home life. If Mom had worsened, I wouldn’t have been able to handle everything, especially a relationship. Cara would have been caught in the middle. It’s what I feel with every other girl I’ve noticed since. I have every reason not to bring new, complicated questions of dating or breaking up into my life.

  Lewis doesn’t know that, of course. He probably never will.

  “Well,” Lewis says, closing his computer and jumping up from the table, “this trip could be a game-changer. I bet we could get you a hookup before we hit New York.” I shrug. “You’re a man of few words,” Lewis observes, watching me. “We can work that angle.”

  “Pauciloquent,” I mutter. From the way Lewis tilts his head uncomprehendingly, I wish I hadn’t. It was a stupid slipup, an invitation for exasperating questions. Fifteen minutes in, and I had to give my brother something to tease me for.

  “Huh?” he says.

  “It’s a word for that—using few words in conversation,” I explain hesitantly, knowing what’s coming.

  Lewis’s expression tightens. “You’re still doing the dictionary thing.”

  I fidget with the buttons on my coat. “Aperiodically.”

  “Doesn’t sound aperiodic.”

  I scowl.

  With a hint of humor in his eyes, Lewis says, “I guess it makes sense. If there’d been a girl, you wouldn’t have spent your evenings with Merriam and Webster.”

  I look up, feeling a flare of anger in my chest. I know there’s a gulf between our degrees of experience, but I don’t need Lewis belittling me for it. He knows I’m the one who’s there for Mom while he’s here doing whatever the hell he wants—too busy even to come home and visit. If he’d had more than a fleeting thought for Mom in the past three years, he might not have had the time to notch his bedposts with Prisha and whoever else.

  I will Lewis to notice my anger. But one of his roommates walks through the front door, and Lewis glances in his direction. The two exchange wordless nods. When Lewis turns back to me with his insouciant grin, I can tell he’s oblivious to how I’m feeling.

  “Don’t worry, Fitz,” he says easily, “college will change everything.”

  He doesn’t know that’s exactly what I don’t want—for everything to change. I don’t want to be two hours from home. I don’t want to lose the chance to check in with Mom every day, or to have to wait for a bus or a train or a flight in an emergency. I’ve worked hard to keep everything unchanging. It’s not easy, and it’s not something I’m intent on throwing away once I’m out of high school.

  “Come on,” Lewis says, still oblivious. “I know a pizza place you’re going to like.”

  Juniper

  TRAFFIC ON I-90 was unbearable. I feel a leg cramp coming on as Matt and I reach the overpasses into the city. We’ve been on the road for nearly two hours, not counting the hour and a half we stopped for dinner at a highway diner in Allston.

  Matt, of course, couldn’t look less bothered by the delay, though that might be because the diner had pumpkin-spice pancakes on the dinner menu. His appetite is aspirational, honestly. He’s nodding to the classic rock he chose on the radio, drumming his fingers on his thigh.

  I watch the city come into view. I’ve only driven into Boston once or twice, but the route is written into my head regardless.

  We drove through here when I was seven, when we left New York for Springfield. Abuela was having heart problems, and Tía needed help running the restaurant. We were only supposed to be in Springfield for a year, until my parents could find permanent help. But things changed. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed since I spoke to Abuela or held her hand—the grief never fades.

  My phone vibrating pulls me from the memories. “Would you check those?” I ask Matt, nodding to the phone.

  He plucks the phone from the cup holder. “It’s your family,” he says, reading.

  I groan. “If it’s Tía coming up with some ridiculous excuse for why I need to come home, tell her we have the tamales and this trip is happening.”

  “It’s not just Sofi,” Matt replies. “It’s pretty much everyone. Marisa wants to know if you’ll drive her to some New Year’s party when you get back, Callie’s wondering where her extra phone charger is, Walker wants to use your computer—I would recommend no—and, yeah, Sofi’s just texted, ‘Don’t forget your family needs you and you need your family.’”

  I grit my teeth. I’ve only been gone a couple of hours and they’re wanting a hundred different things from me. It’s like I have a job description written on my birth certificate. I get it—with my good grades, my uniquely sharp memory, my oldest-sibling status, I’m easy to depend on. Not like Marisa, who’s careless enough to literally lose her backpack for two whole days. Even Tía, while determined, is getting too old to do everything. If only my siblings could handle themselves sometimes, even every now and then.

  Instead, it’s me. Every time. “Put my phone on silent,” I say. He does and returns my phone to the cup holder. My family is going to have to get used to the distance.

  We drive into the city center, turning left onto Arlington and circumnavigating Boston Common. Last time I was here, the endless expanse of grass was filled with dogs catching Frisbees and kids feeding crackers to the ducks. Now, in the nighttime, it’s empty except for groups of teenagers sitting on the park benches or wandering the paths.

  I pull up in front of the valet for the Liberty Hotel. Matt peers out my window, and his eyebrows furrow in confusion.

  “This isn’t our hotel,” he says.

  “Isn’t it?” I reply coyly. I get out of the car and give my keys to the valet. Matt follows, pulling our itinerary from his pocket and unfolding the printout.

  “Our parents got us rooms at the DoubleTree, Juniper.”

  Together, we gaze up at the building in front of us. The façade is gray stone, with two wings reaching out from the tower in the center. Vast windows drench us in light. The circular window above us is like a face for this two-armed architectural being.

  “This is definitely out of our price range,” Matt adds.

  I walk toward the front doors. Matt grabs the bags and runs behind me to catch up. “I called three days ago and canceled our parents’ reservations. If we combine the money they gave us, two rooms there cost about as much as one here.” I have a nonnegotiable budget from my parents, and I’ll be grounded one week for every fifty dollars I overcharge the credit card. “I’ll pay for this hotel, and you pay for the next. Neither of us will go over our parents’ limits.”

  Matt’s eyes light up brighter than the windows. “You are a genius,” he declares. “A genius who will be grounded if her parents check the hotel name on the credit card statement, but a genius nonetheless.”

  I hold the door open for him. “I think it’s worth a grounding, don’t you?”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  We walk into the lobby. With a low whistle, Matt places our suitcases on the floor.

  I take in the room. It’s dazzling like the exterior, multiplied by a hundred. The floor is a black-and-white checkerboard. White balconies with black railings ring the brick-walled room in tiers. They evoke cellblocks, because that’s what they were. The building is a converted jail.

  I nudge Matt with my elbow. “Look up.”

  We both do. From the ceiling hang Christmas trees, upside down, the tops pointed toward us like missiles hung in perpetual motionlessness. Each one is illuminated with strings of tiny lights, just like normal Christmas trees would be. They look like the celebratory orna
ments of an inverted world connected to our own by the ceiling of this hotel.

  “This is incredible,” I hear myself breathe.

  Matt just stands there in awe.

  We head to the check-in desk. While I’m pulling out my credit card and signing forms, Matt tries repeatedly to hold my hand under the counter. I have to swat him away and restrain myself from giggling. I don’t think I do a very convincing job, because the check-in clerk gives me a funny look. Finally, Matt settles for encircling his arm around my waist.

  Once we’ve gotten our room keys, we explore the lobby. With every glimpse of every inch of this hotel, I feel my breath catch. It’s a study—no, an exhibition—in contrasts. In the restaurant on the ground floor, candles flicker under windows with jailhouse bars. On the worn brick walls outside the bar, huge panels hang depicting flowering trees.

  We find the elevator, and Matt punches the button for our floor. “How’d you know about this place?” he asks nonchalantly.

  I give him an incredulous eyebrow raise.

  He laughs, the noise ringing out wonderfully in the small space. “Right. You’ve been researching this for weeks. How could I forget you’re the girl who prints out item-by-item itineraries when we go to the mall?”

  I flush. “That was once,” I reply. The truth is, though, I do plan everything. I want to wring every moment for what it has to offer. I want to do everything I can everywhere I go, even the mall. And this trip, this week of nine schools and a hundred million glimpses of my future, is way more important than shopping.

  “Well, it’s perfect,” Matt says softly.

  The elevator doors open, and we walk into the hall. Matt can hardly keep his hands off me as we find our room. I give him a quick kiss and unlock the door. We hurry in, him just a step behind me, and I feel a rush in my cheeks and my chest. Yet when I hit the lights and get a glimpse of our room, I have to pause.

  It’s not the details that catch my eye, the key-patterned carpet and the hash marks printed on the pillow, like the carvings on the walls of a convict’s cell. It’s the window on the far end of the room, and everything it overlooks. The lights of the hotel illuminate the street, and behind it, the Charles River. There’s a bridge to the side, dotted with headlights. The river itself is a frozen expanse, gently reflecting the lights of the Boston skyline.

  I walk to the window. Matt comes up behind me, one hand finding my waist and the other sweeping my hair over my shoulder. Without a glance at the view, he kisses my neck.

  I lift my lips to his and fall into his arms.

  Fitz

  I HAVE PIZZA with squash blossoms for dinner. Lewis and I hardly talk.

  We walk from the restaurant onto the busy sidewalk, Lewis a couple of steps in front, pulling his coat close and glaring warily into the cold. We cross Commonwealth, a wide street with train tracks and overhead cables for the T running down the center. On the opposite curb, I follow Lewis toward the StuVi Commons.

  In the lobby, I blurt what’s been burning in my thoughts for the past hour. “Do you think Mom’s okay with you moving to New York?”

  Lewis’s step falters, or I might be imagining it, because his voice comes out characteristically easy and level. “Of course,” he says, hitting the button for the elevator. “She helped time the trip to coincide with an interview I have in the city.”

  I bite back my bitterness about skipping school, about Lewis’s schedule getting prioritized over mine. This is the way it always is, me making sacrifices—me committing, doing what needs to be done—while Lewis does whatever he wants. “But what will you do when—” I cut myself off. I don’t want to say it. I have half a superstition that every time I say it, it comes closer to reality. But I force myself. “When she needs help.”

  His eyes skirt mine. “I’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he says decisively, and I know it’s the end of the conversation. The elevator doors open, and I follow him in.

  We ride the elevator without speaking. Lewis scrolls sporadically on his phone. He chuckles to himself once or twice. Unbelievable. The second time, he bothers to nudge me with his elbow and move the screen closer to me.

  It’s a video of a cat on one of those motorized vacuums.

  “Wait for it to replay,” Lewis mutters. I wait. The video replays. The vacuum, with cat rider, hums toward a couch or coffee table, I can’t tell which. The vacuum keeps going, under the object, while the furniture pushes the cat off and onto the ground, where it sits, bored or disaffected.

  I muster a smile, and Lewis only chuckles once again and resumes scrolling his newsfeed.

  We return to his room. I guess Lewis noticed I’m not in the mood for conversation or cat videos, because I hear impatience in his voice when he informs me he’s going to grab his extra blanket and make up the couch for me. He heads to his bedroom, and I wait by the window.

  My head is a whirlwind. It’s within me to shout at my brother, to force him to take our mother’s diagnosis seriously. It’s not just some bridge to be crossed. It’s the rest of our lives. The rest of her life. I don’t understand how I’m the only one who understands.

  Mom has the genetic mutation that guarantees she’ll develop early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. We don’t know how much time she has before her symptoms set in.

  She is the most responsible, resilient, positive person I know. Through college and graduate school, she cared for her own mother, who also had early-onset Alzheimer’s. I’ve heard the stories Mom would tell on the rare evenings when she was in dark moods—the first time her mother ever forgot her name, the nights she called at two a.m. convinced she was being held against her will, the panic in her mother’s eyes when confronted with a room full of family she saw as strangers. None of my mom’s efforts could rescue her mother from the disease, of course. Her mother died four years following her diagnosis.

  She was fifty-five.

  That’s not unusual—neither her age nor the years she hung on. I know because I’m one of those teenagers whose Google search history includes, “How long do Alzheimer’s patients typically live?”

  My mother understood the genetics. She knew she had a fifty-fifty chance of carrying the early Alzheimer’s mutation. She avoided taking the test for as long as she could, knowing firsthand what the disease would do and that nothing could stop it, and not wanting the diagnosis looming over the rest of her life. However, she understood the game of chance she’d be playing if she had her own children. She knew she could consign them to the wild-eyed nights and empty moments she’d watched her own mother go through.

  It’s why she and my dad decided to adopt. Lewis came from Bengaluru four years before I was brought home from Arkansas. We were both infants. I’ve never met my birth mother, though I’ve been told she had me when she was sixteen and has since gone to college. We send her Christmas cards, and I know she’s not opposed to other contact from me. I just haven’t reached out. I might one day, but with everything going on with my mom, it’s one question too many.

  A year after my mom and dad divorced, she decided she couldn’t put off finding out whether she’d inherited her mother’s disease. If she was going to be a single parent, she’d have to plan for herself and for Lewis and me. One day, when I was in middle school, without telling either of us, she took the test.

  I don’t have a great memory for things other than words. I don’t remember my first day of high school, or the trip we took to Disney World when I was in elementary school, or the first time Lewis brought a girl over—which, to be fair, might be because he’s brought enough of them over that I’ve lost track. But I remember the day Mom told us her test results. The way the winter sunlight filtered through the window in the front of the house, the smell of apple pie—Lewis’s and my favorite, one of the few things we’ve ever agreed on—from the kitchen when she sat us down in the living room. I remember worrying the threads of the green couch, knowing s
omething was coming even if I didn’t know what. Lewis, for his part, stared at his shoes in uncharacteristic stillness while Mom gave us the details on how the results would and wouldn’t change our lives.

  There isn’t a question of if she will develop the disease. She will. With a strength I’d never known she had in her, she never mourned her prognosis. She’s only repeated how grateful she is she decided not to have biological children, how grateful she is to have Lewis and me—how grateful she knew enough to avoid the weight of worry over whether we’re going to share her disease.

  She reassured us the coming years wouldn’t change and our lives would remain normal. Lewis took her at her word, from what I understood from his quick return to texting during dinners and working on college apps with his friends instead of coming right home every afternoon. He did become interested in his biological family, writing them letters in the summer before going off to college. He’s close with one half brother, who gave him the news their mother died years before.

  As for me, I couldn’t accept life would “remain normal.” There is no normal, not now.

  Normal is a memory. And it’s my job to hold on to every one of my mom’s. Every day I watch her for early signs—whenever she forgets the time of an appointment, or something I mentioned to her, or where she put her keys. What would be tiny annoyances in the life of a normal high-school senior fill my head with a parade of red flags.

  There’s nobody else to watch for her condition developing or care for her. We don’t have extended family. My dad, who lives in Canada with his girlfriend, was rocked by her test results. It was never a question that he would continue to support Lewis and me financially, but nobody expected him to handle his ex-wife’s medical expenses, not to mention the full-time care she’ll one day need. I don’t resent him for it, even if I understand our lives would be easier were our family whole. He and I talk on the phone regularly, and I spend a month with him in Canada every summer—but for practical purposes, I’m on my own.