Know Not Why: A Novel

by Hannah Johnson

“I would be happy to help you, Miranda,” Emily calls back, standing up.

  “Amber, hon, are you here?”

  Emily sits back down.

  This is not lost on Amber. She doesn’t make a move forward. Instead, she says awkwardly to Emily, “You can—”

  “No, no, go ahead,” Emily says, gracious as the queen of England. “She called for you.”

  Amber nods, and disappears up the stairs. Dennis stares after her with – well, with a look that is in no way a normal Dennis look. He doesn’t look all that pleased with the world and everyone and everything in it. Come to think of it, he probably looks a whole lot like me.

  “We had a very nice time watching A Room with a View,” Emily finally ventures. Dennis looks at her like he can’t decide whether to hug her or avenge her honor. “I can’t help feeling so sorry for poor Cecil Vyse. He’s not one to kiss a girl in a field of violets in Italy, of course, but even so.”

  “Um,” I say, having exactly no clue what any of that means, “yeah. Poor … old chap.”

  “He is an old chap, isn’t he?” Emily says, giving me this very keen look, like I’ve landed upon the perfect phrasing.

  “I think she probably just wanted to thank Amber for bringing the food over,” Dennis says, sounding about forty percent convinced by himself. “And that’s why …”

  “Yes, I know,” Emily says serenely.

  “Okay.” He kisses her hair. She gives him a quiet smile, but it’s not quite enough to brighten up his expression. I don’t really know what to do. I start counting all the whole cranberries I can spot in the cranberry sauce.

  “So, why doesn’t Arthur have anyone to spend Christmas with?” Dennis asks, switching back to pleasantly conversational mode. “That guy we saw him with, wasn’t that his—”

  “They split up,” I reply, abandoning cranberries. “Awhile ago, actually.”

  “Oh,” Dennis says. “That’s too bad.”

  “I dunno,” I reply. “I think it was for the best.”

  Because that means I get him all to myself, wikka whaaat, I do not say. For the first time, though, I feel like maybe I should. Technically, I guess I’ve always gotten that Dennis has a right to know. I’ve just never quite felt it ‘til now, with him standing there looking down at Emily, not even slightly smiling.

  +

  Dinner happens. Everybody survives. There are five things, though, five things that go down throughout the course of the evening that really feel like they matter.

  1.

  Emily hangs up mistletoe. (“It’s such a lovely tradition, I think. Did you know that it dates back all the way to pagan rituals? And in Scandinavian history, it was a symbol of peace: if two enemies walked beneath it, they had to lay their arms aside. Well. Not their literal arms, of course. That wouldn’t be very peaceful at all.”) For the most part, we’re all careful when it comes to doorways, but at one point, Mitch and Amber slip up and walk under it together. Amber – new, bold, I Went On A Blind Date and Survived Amber – is actually, like, totally game for it. She throws one little look at Dennis, who doesn’t notice, and then says, “You know what? Sure. It’s about time, right? And in terms of storytelling, nothing’s gonna top ‘I had my first kiss at twenty-two under some mistletoe with a guy who, at first glance, mistook said mistletoe for marijuana, brought along corndogs and rootbeer as his contribution to the Christmas feast.’”and, fun bonus fact,

  “What’s wrong with corndogs and rootbeer?” asks Mitch, looking a little bit crestfallen and a lot bit freaked.

  “Nothing,” Amber says impatiently, inching into him. “Mitchell, can we just—?” She puts a hand on his chest.

  “You don’t have to kiss me,” Mitch insists, encircling her wrist and guiding it off of him with all the grace and speed of a jungle cat (who’s suddenly really scared of girls). “You don’t. Screw that little plant. He’s not the boss of us.”

  Mitch then spends all night looking miserable. Amber doesn’t do much better.

  2.

  Herrick brings snowman cookies. They are intricate little fuckers, too; he didn’t just use a Frosty-shaped cookie cutter and call it a day. Herrick is this very intellectual, very Englishy guy with light brown hair and a beard and wire-rimmed glasses and lots of cardigans with those little elbow patches on them, who is about as British as you can get without actually being from Britain. The idea of him taking the time to draw little icing faces and scarves and button noses onto like twenty friggin’ snowman cookies is unreal. I reach the conclusion that they must be store-bought, but then I hear him telling my mom about his adventures in making them. I pause on my way to the living room: the two of them stand in the kitchen alone, bending over the tray so my mom can inspect the cookies. She laughs and points out the scarf on one of them, and says, “Ooh, lilac and sky blue stripes, this one’s quite a dandy.” Herrick gets Very Serious, all, “Yes, that was absolutely my intention there. Whereas here, this one’s a bit more of a ruffian, a wrong-side-of-the-tracks snowman—” and my mom laughs, and he looks at her with this very fond look, even though she forgot one of her earrings and she introduced him to Dennis as “my friend, well, my work friend, well, we know each other from work – not that he’s not a friend, certainly we’re friends, right, David?”

  I see Herrick looking at her with that look, like she’s cooler than the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a whole class’ worth of student essays with perfect MLA formatting put together, and I think I may be capable of reconciling myself to this.

  3.

  My mom is not the sappiest of matriarchs, not even slightly, but she spends the whole first half of the night looking at Arthur like she wants to throw her arms around him and burst into tears. I can’t help but feel like this doesn’t bode well for the future; how can I expect them to have a functional relationship if she’s all blubbery whenever she’s in his presence? But then somehow, the conversation turns to music, and Arthur mentions driving around with me and being subjected – direct quote, that’s the word he uses, subjected – to a half hour of The Clash. This makes my mom’s eyebrows shoot up.

  “I can’t hear much there besides noise,” he says, adorably oblivious. “I know that there’s a lot of political resonance in their lyrics, but – well, it’s hard to count that in their favor when you can’t actually make out any of the lines.”

  “Arthur,” my mom says very seriously, after taking one steadying swig of her wine. “Thank you for bringing the cobbler. You’ve been a lovely dinner guest. But surely you must be shitting me.”

  This is when I know that they’re gonna be all right.

  4.

  At dessert, when we’ve been at the table long enough that a sense of vaguely inebriated ease has settled over us, Dennis says, “There’s some stuff I’d like to say, actually.” Everybody looks at him, and there’s something about “some stuff” plus me and Arthur plus Mom and Herrick that somehow makes me nervous. It’s a kind of stomach-lurching that can’t quite be blamed on the three pieces of cherry pie I polished off. But Dennis just looks back at all of us, and then he smiles, and he holds up his glass and says, “Merry Christmas.” Amber looks at him. Emily looks down at her hands. We’re all real happy to pretend that that’s what he’d meant to say in the first place.

  5.

  There’s a piano in our living room. Nobody in our family has ever really played. It was Grandma and Grandpa Jenkins’ wedding present to my mom and dad, and even though Mom had Dennis and me take some lessons when we were kids (Dennis lasted a year; I lasted three and a half sessions, and might have accidentally pulled my piano teacher’s wig off), it was never a thing that stuck. Over the years, it became a glorified stand for all of our family pictures; I think that I may have actually forgotten that it was capable of creating sound. After dinner, though, the whole gang moves into the living room, and Arthur starts ogling the piano.

  “May I?” he asks my mom, gesturing to it.

  “Oh,” she says, surprised. “Certainly.”


  He sits down and starts playing Winter Wonderland. He’s unobtrusive about it; it’s not like it’s suddenly holiday concert time, more like background music. After a little while, Mitch and Dennis strike up a conversation trying to determine which Judd Apatow movie is the best, and that becomes fodder for a surprisingly heated conversation. Emily, the only non-Arthur person in the room who I’m guessing doesn’t have an opinion on the subject, gravitates over to Arthur. They exchange a few words, smiling at each other. Then all of a sudden, they’re singing together. Arthur plays a jazzy little intro, and they launch right into “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”

  It is maybe the best thing I’ve ever witnessed in my whole life. They remind me of something from an old movie, Arthur at the piano and Emily standing beside it. They smile and make faces at each other, totally milking the lyrics for all they’re worth. All I can think, watching them, is how awesome they both are, and how weird it is that it took me such a long time to see it.

  +

  On Christmas morning, Mom, Dennis, Emily and I go for a walk. There’s this little park ten minutes from our house: it’s a nice, quiet spot, with lots of trees and a lake. It’s not quite cold enough that the water’s frozen over, and there’s this flock of ducks that hangs around all the time. If there’s one thing the Jenkins household never has a shortage of, it’s food that’s past its expiration date. And so Mom digs up a loaf of expired wheat bread from the cupboard, and we get ready to go give our feathered friends a Christmas treat. I put on my Emily socks and bundle up, and we all set off. My instinct is to complain a whole goddamn lot about it: pulled out of bed before the crack of noon to go outside, sans breakfast, sans coffee – the indignity of it all! But the Christmas walk was always a Dad thing, and we haven’t kept up with it over the past couple of years. I like the idea of starting again.

  The cold air is kind of nice first thing, which is one of those facts of life it’s really easy to forget. It makes me feel more clear-headed than I’m used to being without the aid of that dread mistress caffeination. It’s snowing lazily, thick flakes that are big enough that they actually look like snowflakes – you know, the stereotypical every-one’s-different-and-super-special perception of snowflakes. I like the crunch of the snow underneath my shoes. Most of the time, I tend to be of the Get Me The Hell Out Of Here And Put Me Somewhere That’s Always Warm persuasion, but I don’t hate the winter today. It makes everything seem bright and crisp and clean.

  Dennis and Emily walk arm in arm a few steps behind Mom and me. Mom’s got her hair pulled back sloppy, and she keeps closing her eyes for these long stretches of time – longer than may be advisable when one’s traveling ‘cross the icy tundra, but she seems to be doing okay so far. There’s a faint almost-smile on her face.

  “Last night went all right, didn’t it?” she says after awhile.

  “Yeah,” I say truthfully. “I think it was pretty nice.”

  “I was so worried beforehand. But really, all things considered, it was something of a triumph. No tears. No bloodshed.”

  “Not to mention the tasty, immensely detailed snowman cookies made by a dude with way too much time on his hands and a natural finesse for icing.”

  “Oh, be nice.” She opens her eyes to give me a little admonitory glare.

  “No, I mean it. Those were great. A feat of cookieish wonder.”

  “He’s a nice man, isn’t he?”

  “He gets points for the cookies. And also for that sweater. I didn’t know they still made those ones with the elbow patches on them.”

  “Shh. It’s his right as a professor.”

  “Mmkay.” And then, because I figure she’s earned herself some sincerity from me, I add, “He’s a cool guy. He’s won my approval.”

  Her smile widens. We walk in nice silence.

  “I love Arthur,” she says then, looking over at me.

  “Jeez, Mom. Forward much? You can’t tell a guy that right after the first date. You’ll spook him. He’ll flee.”

  “No, I do. And I love you with Arthur.”

  It’s weird to hear out loud. For some reason, it’s made especially weird by the fact that it’s here: this peaceful, Narnian landscape, with the faint blur of Dennis and Emily’s conversation the only other noise around.

  “Yeah?” I say. My voice sounds a little croaky.

  “Yeah. You seem happy around each other.”

  “We are,” I say.

  Mom doesn’t say anything. She reaches over and tousles my hair, then pulls my hood back up.

  “You’re not allowed to freeze your ears off. All of the other mothers will make fun of me for having the bizarre earless offspring, and I don’t know if I’m secure enough to endure that.”

  “In that case, I should probably let my ears freeze off for the greater good. It sounds like you are in need of some serious character growth, Mamacita.”

  “Oh, hon. How did you become such a pain in the ass. Surely that all must have come from Daddy’s side.”

  “I dunno. I feel like you must have contributed at least a little bit there. Or, you know, a whole lot of extremely.”

  She fake-punches me in the arm, then loops her arm through mine. I feel really glad to be her kid.

  When we get to the lake, my mom offers a slice of bread to Emily. Dennis hangs back and watches the two of them as they start wooing ducks over. After a little while, he comes next to me.

  He doesn’t say anything. I’ve gotten pretty used to awkward silence when it comes to Dennis and me. That doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

  “Mom’s dating David, isn’t she?” he says at long last. It’s not where I expected the conversation to start.

  “Yeah,” I say. I get the feeling that Mom should be the one who’s telling him this, but she doesn’t seem eager to get around to it. Besides, we’re brothers. She’s our mom. It makes sense.

  “For how long?”

  “Not very, I don’t think. She only told me a little while ago. The same weekend that I went to that concert Arthur played at.”

  “Oh.” Dennis goes quiet. I look over at him. He’s watching Mom and Emily, who are both laughing as they toss bread into the water. “I wonder why she didn’t tell me.”

  I feel a flash of guilt. “I dunno, man, it didn’t really seem like she was gonna tell me either. Some stuff … just … happened, and it wound up coming up. I don’t think she really wanted to.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Dennis says, still not looking at me. “The two of you have always been close.”

  “We have?”

  “Well, yeah. We used to divvy up like that. You and her, and me and Dad.”

  As soon as he says it, I realize that it’s true. It’s just that I never really thought to look at it like that. The way I saw it, it was always more that Dennis was Dad’s favorite, his pride ‘n joy, but at least I had Mom’s weird-ass sense of humor. I didn’t seem like the big winner in the situation at the time.

  “It’s hard with three,” he says. “Like … like I’m not in the club, or whatever.”

  “What?” I say. “You are so in the club! If there is a club. I don’t even think there’s a club. Because, like, who starts two-person mother-son clubs? Not a healthy situation—”

  “I’m just saying. That’s how I’ve been feeling for awhile. And I’m not always the best at saying what I really mean. But … I guess here’s me trying. I’m sorry if this conversation sucks.”

  “You’re doing okay,” I tell him.

  We both laugh the same awkward, trying-too-hard laugh. It strikes me that he’s having just as difficult a time as I am.

  Something about that makes me like him more than usual. “I’m sorry that Mom and I are ... keeping you out of the club,” I say. “I didn’t think to look at it like that.”

  “That’s okay.” I believe him. Then again, I guess that’s his specialty.

  In any case, the time seems right. About as right as it’s ever going to be. “You know why Arthur came over la
st night?”

  “Because he didn’t have anywhere else to go?”

  “Well, yeah. And also – well, you know how he broke up with his boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, well. He’s kinda … seeing somebody new.”

  Dennis only looks lost for a few seconds before it dawns on him. He’s always been a quick one, my bro.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Telling Mitch is tricky business. I bring a bucket of KFC chicken along with me, reasoning that if things go really shitty, well, I can at least distract-slash-pacify him with fast food.

  As soon as I come in and we’re sitting down on the couch (with a cushion’s worth of space and a bucket of chicken between us, because the last thing I want to do is freak him out with proximity), I attempt my explanation. A lot of really confusing words come out of my mouth, stuff about Bert and Ernie and were they really just roommates, and imagine Xena and Gabrielle but with boy parts. Nope. He just stares at me. And then after awhile, I guess he starts getting bored, because he stares at the chicken instead.

  “Here you go,” I say, prodding said bucket of chicken in his direction. I’m feeling pretty disheartened.

  “No thanks,” Mitch says.

  Which is like: “Say what now?”

  “Howie,” he says morosely, “do you think Amber’s mad at me? For not kissing her? With the whole mistletoe thing?”

  “No,” I say, “I don’t think she’s mad at you. I think she might be sort of mad at Dennis.”

  “Oh,” Mitch says. I sense that we’re not quite done with this yet, because he’s not smiling, and he has yet to pay attention to the chicken. “I felt like … you know, it would have been assholey for me to do it. ‘Cause she’s all super old to be unkissed, and she’s waited this long, and it should be amazing. Like that whole thing in The Princess Diaries, where she wants her foot to, like, pop!” He demonstrates with his own foot and kicks a bowl of old Spaghettios off the end table (that is actually a box) in the process. “And there should be fountains, all like whooshhhhh, and she’s wearing one of those little sparkly crowns—”