by Jessica Park
“How are you?” she asks.
“Fine, fine.” I blather on about college courses for a few minutes.
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing all right. We never heard from you after … after your parents died. I know it was such a chaotic time then, and later your aunt assured us that you were both doing as well as could be expected and that you were busy with school and moving on. And we didn’t know if you’d want to hear from us or not. I mean, we were your parents’ friends, after all, and you probably had your own friends to lean on. After the funeral service, Tim and I almost picked up the phone so many times, but we didn’t want to intrude or …” Lani fumbles for words. “We didn’t want to make things worse. If seeing us would have made it harder on you, we would have felt terrible. I hope you didn’t think that we didn’t care. Or that we don’t care. We loved your parents so much, Blythe. And we love you and James.” I hear her voice crack and am moved beyond words. Somebody did and does care about us. “But you’re happy now?”
I am nodding and smiling and furiously stirring the pot on the stove. It takes me a moment to be able to answer her. “I am. It’s been …” I am trying to think how to phrase it. I want to be honest. “It’s been a very, very hard time, and I’ve struggled a lot, but this year things are finally turning around. I have good friends now, and that makes my world bright again. I’ve missed you, also. It’s going to be just great to see you.”
“Wonderful. Tim will be delighted to hear you’re coming. Oh, and Nichole Rains will be here with her parents. You two were friends in high school, weren’t you?”
“We were. It will be good to see her.”
“Excellent. We had dinner at her parents’ house last week, and she was asking about you.”
“She was?” I’m surprised.
“Absolutely. She said that you had sort of fallen off the map after graduation, and she was really hoping to reconnect with you.”
Flabbergasted does not begin to describe how I feel, but I manage to thank Lani again for the invitation. My plan was to force myself to go and simply get through the party. Instead, I’m realizing, this might actually be nice. Really, really nice.
I turn down the heat on the sauce and reexamine the apple pie that I baked. The pie is cookbook-photo-worthy, and I nearly text Chris a picture of it with a note saying that he was clearly the downfall of the Thanksgiving pies. But I don’t.
I go to the living room. It looks as though Christmas vomited all over the room, but I wanted to use every single decoration that had been stored in the six boxes in the attic. I’d forgotten that my mother had a thing for old-fashioned Santas, and there are all sorts of St. Nicholas items displayed around the room. It borders on creepy, but I think I’ve pulled it off by covering the room in white twinkle lights. Those do a lot to offset the tackiness. A lot of decorative accessories in the house were tucked away for the renters’ sake, but after I took out the holiday stuff, I retrieved the dishes and bedding and such that James and I are used to. I already unpacked the boxes of stuff that Lisa unceremoniously moved here from her house, and it’s nice to see our familiar bedding. The relief that she is out of town is immense, and I’m convinced that seeing her would undo the tone that I’m hoping to set for this time with James.
I’ve been torn, because as much as I want this house to feel the same as it used to, I also want to make it feel fresh, so I’ve been trying to mix in the old with the new. All the decorating, unpacking, shopping, and general fussing I’ve been doing has been good for me. Even though I’ve felt torn up a few times, I can feel a level of competence and independence growing.
I am proud of myself.
The tree looks crazy. It’s absolutely covered in ornaments. So much so that there is barely any green from the branches visible, but I think it’s damn awesome. I’ve arranged and rearranged James’s presents a hundred times and moved his stocking from one part of the mantel to another over and over, even though I’m quite sure that he’s not going to walk in here and have some kind of meltdown because his stocking should have been three inches to the left, or one of his presents is at an improper angle.
I snatch the Kindle that I treated myself to for Christmas and occupy my busy mind with news stories and downloading books. Without a social life here, I’ll certainly have plenty of time to read over break. I already miss the Shepherd crew, but I am going to lean on myself and feel good about it.
I am ten chapters into my book when I hear the front door being unlocked. It’s amazing somehow that we both still have our house keys. I force myself to stay on the couch because I know that the last thing I should do is swoop over to James and make a scene.
My brother practically falls into the living room, weighed down by three mammoth duffel bags. He lets them fall to the floor and stands up. “Hey,” he says.
I take him in. He looks the same as he did four and a half months ago—I know that rationally—but at the same time, he looks incredible. I see the little kid who let me stand on the back of his tricycle, the one who used to beg me to throw him from the dock into the ocean, and the one who blew us all away with his incredible athletic prowess and the equal level of modesty that went along with that. Cheering and screaming at his games always caused him huge embarrassment, but that’s what parents and a sister are for. Or were for.
As I look at him, though, for a moment I also see the boy who is lying in a pool of blood outside a burning house. But I will not go there now.
“Hey, back.” I set down my Kindle and focus on how healthy and handsome he looks. He’s let his light-brown hair grow out a bit and it suits him, although I nonetheless have the maternal instinct to brush it off his face so that I can see his blue eyes. The sleek brown leather coat and jeans he has on hug his frame, and I can see that he is in as good shape as ever. “How was your flight? No delays out of Boulder?”
“No, it was all fine. Except that I’m starving. Should we order something?” He stands in the center of the room with his hands in his pockets.
“No, I’ve got dinner on the stove.” I eye his luggage. “Laundry?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ll start it tomorrow.”
I walk over to his bags, and my feet sink reassuringly into the carpet in just the way they always have. “No problem. I got it. You want to shower or anything before we eat?”
“That … would be good. Thanks.” Now that I am near him, he gives me a half hug as I’m bending down to pick up a bag. “Holy shit, Blythe!”
“What?” I ask, somewhat alarmed.
“You look … really good. God, you’re so skinny.” He pushes me away and assesses me. “Wait. Are you okay?”
I smile softly. “I’m fine. I’ve been running, so I’ve lost some weight.”
“You totally have. And you’re sort of muscly, and toned, and shit. But it’s more than that. Did you change your hair or something? And you’re kind of … I don’t know. Glowy.”
“I can assure you that I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you mean.”
He laughs. God, I’ve missed that sound. “I didn’t mean it like that. You look good. Really … pretty.”
It’s a bit unnerving how surprised he sounds. I don’t think I’m any particular beauty now, so I must have been pretty awful looking these past few years. “I’m going to start a load. Towels are in the bathroom for you, and there are clothes from stupid Lisa’s on your bed. No rush. We can eat whenever you want.”
James looks sort of dumbfounded. Exactly what I was hoping for. Admittedly, I am showing off a bit. Look at me! I’m functional! And not pudgy! It’s important to me that James sees that I am trying.
“Yeah, okay. I won’t take long.”
We eat dinner and I ask him a hundred questions about school, about his girlfriend, about music he’s listening to. Anything that I can think of. I want to know my brother again, but I try to keep the conversation casual. Not once do I mention anything that could conceivably be construed as depressing. James is—I can hardly believe it—resp
onsive. He even asks me about my life. It occurs to me in a rather schmaltzy manner that he may have been “saved by a good woman.” This girlfriend of his is probably showing him love and stability, both of which he needs and both of which I have not been able to give him.
Until now.
The next evening we go to Lani and Tim’s party. Lani hugs me so tightly that I nearly lose my breath, and it’s wonderful. James flirts, I can’t help noticing, with anyone vaguely close to his age, and the girls love it. I eat fancy hors d’oeuvres and drink one glass of champagne. I sing wretched, awful Christmas carols at the top of my lungs. I speak to my high school pal Nichole for about thirty minutes. There is no discussion of dead parents or my catatonic state during our senior year of high school, and we exchange phone numbers. Next summer, after graduation, she is planning on interning at a Boston-based online magazine that reports on all things New England and thinks I should try for a position as well.
The night is pretty fucking magical.
I’m very aware of how well I am operating in situations that I would have been incapable of broaching even last summer. Chris, Sabin, Eric, and Estelle have rescued me, and I can’t fathom how I can ever begin to repay them.
James acts like he hates it, but I make him get into bed before midnight because when we were growing up, we were required to be in bed while it was still Christmas Eve and not one minute into Christmas. It was some weird ritual that my parents had. I did, for one minuscule second, have the thought that James and I should go to midnight mass tonight—an exception my parents occasionally made to their rule—but I dismiss it. I may be pushing it, but I actually get James to tolerate my making a big show of tucking him in and giving a mock lecture about how Christmas will be ruined if he so much as gets up to go to the bathroom. He rolls his eyes and smiles at me, which I think is fantastic, and demands to know why I am not in bed, too.
“Because I am an elf, dummy. And elves must work late into the evening and do secret … elf crap or whatever. Now go to sleep!” I hear him try to hide a giggle as I leave.
I putz around the living room some more. James’s stocking is bursting, absolutely bursting, when I finish filling it, and then I head into the laundry room to throw in another round of his laundry. The second half of the duffel’s contents that I load into the washer smell just as disgusting as one would expect a college boy’s to. I also have the gross experience of finding a box of condoms in his bag. Awesome. My little brother has had sex before I have. Should I have some kind of sex talk with him? Ick. Probably not.
But maybe.
Before I go to bed, there is one thing that I want to do. I kneel in front of the Christmas tree and snoop around. James has left me a few presents under the tree, which I find incredibly thoughtful. Actually, more than a few, I notice. Huh. Usually he gets me a shirt from his college and one or two other small things. And I have presents from Eric, Estelle, and Sabin, too. This is so much more than I need right now.
However, that does not stop me from finding the blue box with the green ribbon from Chris. I want to open this alone. I’m sure that he has not gifted me anything inappropriate that would embarrass me in front of James, but I still want to be alone for this. There is a small envelope attached to the box with a card. I hesitate to open it, which is stupid because it’s not as though Chris will have written some dramatic and romantic confession of the heart on a two-inch-by- two inch-card. And not that I want that anyway.
The card actually is a confession of sorts. It says: This belongs to you. I have no idea why. I’m weird. I laugh out loud. Inside the box is a mass of tissue paper and Bubble Wrap, and it takes a few minutes of unwrapping to find what’s inside.
I don’t know why this belongs to me either, but I agree that it does. Chris has given me a beautiful porcelain sea urchin. The main color of the shell is the palest green, nearly white, with darker green and white dots that line and texture the piece where the spines would have fallen off. They tickle my hand as I gently touch its exterior.
I love it. I love it more than anyone should love a porcelain sea urchin, and I don’t care that my adoration for this little thing doesn’t make sense. I set it on the floor in front of me, lie down on my stomach, and prop my chin in my hands. For twenty minutes I stare at it.
This is, and will always be, the most spectacular present I’ll ever receive.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Blame(less)
Christmas morning is great. I keep us moving so that there is not much time to overthink how fucked up the day is and how inexcusably awful it is that we are alone on such a major holiday. I blast music and giggle to myself when the radio station plays Michael Bublé, and we open presents and eat an enormous breakfast. James gives me presents that do not include any college sweatshirts, and I suspect that his girlfriend helped him pick out the perfume, fancy makeup, and shimmery scarf. I like her even more. He seems to really love the clothes, gift cards, overly expensive headphones, and new phone that I got for him, and it is great to see him happy.
Estelle got me an utterly gorgeous deep purple off-the-shoulder top and a designer handbag, and the gift bag from Sabin holds a beautiful silver cuff bracelet. Eric outdid himself by giving me my pretend genie wishes: a basket of small alpaca-stuffed animals, a can of whipped cream, and huge gel inserts that I could stick into my bra to achieve triple-D breasts. I have to explain the odd collection to James, who seems momentarily concerned about this new group I am hanging out with. The presents from my friends overwhelm me.
James and I watch action movies and stuff ourselves silly. It is a great goddamn day.
While my brother spends a lot of his vacation out with his high school friends, I spend a lot of time dealing with online banking and bill-paying arrangements. I want to take over all of the stuff that Lisa has been doing, something that I should have done the day that I turned twenty-one and could legally manage all of our finances. It’s a monstrous amount of paperwork and a big game of phone tag with our lawyer and accountant, but I straighten out some incredibly boring property issues and make irritatingly grown-up financial decisions. I make arrangements for the house to be maintained while James and I are back at school, and I get in touch with the property manager who has been overseeing the house in Maine and making sure it doesn’t topple into the ocean. I confirm with him that, no, I do not want to rent it out.
Every phone call sucks to all hell, but I get shit accomplished, and I feel in control.
The most important thing that I do is send an e-mail. I write Annie, my mom’s best friend who soldiered through her own grief to take care of James and me during the weeks after the fire. I track her down on the internet and write her an eight-paragraph letter. It takes me three hours to find the words to tell her that I royally fucked up, that I miss her and need her. I do what I can to explain my pain and my healing (or lack thereof) over the years. Aside from Chris, there’s nobody I’ve opened up to like this, and the risk feels immense. But one that’s worth taking.
There are frequent texts and pictures from Sabin , a video of the four of them waving and yelling hellos at me from a Hawaiian beach, and the occasional text from Chris to see how I am, but I am careful not to let myself obsess over my communication with them. This is my time to myself and time to be with James, and I’m thrilled that we’ve made it two and a half weeks without a scene.
And then we have a shitty conversation, James and I.
To be fair, it is what I thought I wanted—an honest exchange.
And it fucking hurts, and it fucking sucks.
Yet it’s necessary.
James is sitting in the corner of the sectional in the living room watching television, and he interrupts my reading. “Blythe?”
“One sec.” I hold up a finger. I’m totally involved in this book, and he probably wants a ride somewhere.
“Blythe,” he says more insistently.
I look up and see that James’s eyes are red and watery.
Oh my God. My
heart sinks. He’s miserable. I thought that we were doing well and that I’d set up this break to be as easy as possible, but I can see suddenly that I’ve failed.
He begins talking, dumping onto me the truths that, so far, he has never shared. “It’s so hard to be here. In this house, especially like this with the damn holidays and all, and not have them here. It’s just that … everything feels so fresh since this is our first time back, and it’s too much. It’s too much. I feel like they just died yesterday.” My brother bursts into tears, and I’m completely taken aback. I don’t know if I should go sit next to him and comfort him or not. “I want them back,” he says.
“I know. Me, too.”
“I want them back so much that, Blythe, I’d make the worst deal possible.”
He’s made a huge confession. I know exactly what he is thinking, and I don’t want him to have to say it. I’ve had the same unbearable thought myself, and I know how it feeds self-hatred. I don’t want that for my brother, so I say out loud what must burden him to the core. “You’d trade me to have one of them back.”
He completely breaks down. This is new because I’ve always been the one in pieces, and James has been the calm, collected, smart one. Now I have to step up.
“James, it’s all right. I will not let you feel bad for wanting them back. If I could give you that, I would. No matter what the cost.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he says, fully crying now.
“I know that you blame me for that night. For why we were there, for how I …” I have to compose myself to continue. “For how I hurt you.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
My brother has tears flowing down his cheeks. I hate this. “I can take it, James. I blame myself, too. The sound of your screaming will haunt me forever. Do you know how often I’ve gone over that night in my head and envisioned how I would do it differently? How I would have woken up at the first hint of smoke? Or that I would have checked to make sure that I’d knocked out every shard of glass from that window? I go back even further, to when I picked that rental house. I should have let you pick the house. Everything. I would change everything. But no matter what you want to throw at me, I’m not leaving you, James. Ever. So you be as mad at me as you need to, and I will still never leave you, and I’ll never stop loving you. You are my brother forever.”