Every Shiny Thing

by Jensen, Cordelia; Morrison, Laurie;

  Anne is making gingerbread,

  which used to be Amy’s favorite.

  I curl up on my bed.

  Out the window, I look down at their garden.

  Think about raking leaves when I first arrived.

  How unfamiliar everything looked.

  Now, I picture

  planting imperfect

  tomatoes,

  peppers,

  even kale

  learning how to garden following Carl’s instruction.

  Who knows, maybe one day, I’ll be able to teach Mom.

  I don’t have Mom’s kaleidoscope anymore.

  So I close my eyes instead.

  In my mind’s eye

  I see a kaleidoscope of faces:

  me

  Lauren

  Anne

  Carl

  Mom

  Dad

  Cassidy

  Audrey

  Emma.

  I watch us all spinning,

  colliding,

  disconnecting

  and then connecting again.

  Like colors,

  we all get our turns

  to fade away

  and to shine.

  Anne calls my name.

  “Time to pick up the tree,” she says,

  and I open my eyes.

  Seeger jumps up

  and follows me.

  Together we bound back down

  the old wooden

  stairs.

  LAUREN

  Something Yellow

  Dad and Ryan’s flight was due in at five on the Sunday before Christmas. A little bit before six, we heard a car pull up outside.

  Mom and I were in the kitchen, making a welcome-home dinner with all Ryan’s favorite foods. I sprinted to the dining room to look out, but it wasn’t Dad’s shiny SUV outside the window. It was Carl’s old sedan with a Christmas tree tied to the roof. He, Anne, and Sierra all got out, and together they untied the tree. Then Carl hoisted it over his shoulder and carried it around back while Anne and Sierra went up the front walk.

  I ducked down so they wouldn’t see me watching. Sierra said something that made Anne laugh, and Anne’s laugh made Sierra smile. Just before they made it to their front steps, Anne reached over to put her arm around Sierra, and I realized: They look like family now, Anne and Sierra. It doesn’t matter that Anne’s skin is dark and Sierra’s is pale. There was something about the way they walked up the front path together that made their connection absolutely obvious.

  I walked out of the dining room and back to Mom then. What was Anne going to do when Sierra went away? How much longer did they have together?

  A few minutes later, Dad’s car really did pull up. The rumble was closer this time, and when two doors echoed shut, one right after the other, Mom and I looked at each other and then ran toward the front door.

  Dad came in first, carrying his small overnight bag in one hand and Ryan’s bigger suitcase in the other. He kissed the top of Mom’s forehead as he passed by to set down the bags at the edge of the living room, and I tried to tell myself the bags were just heavy, and he didn’t kiss my head because I wasn’t right in his path.

  And then Ryan came inside. He was wearing his red winter coat, unzipped, and his favorite soft gray T-shirt and sweatpants. He’s even taller than he was in October, so the shirt isn’t as long on him as it used to be. His hair’s longer than usual, too.

  Ryan held one hand up, and Mom rushed over to take it.

  “Oh, buddy. It’s so good to have you home,” she said, and then she completely lost it. Just started sobbing, right there in the hallway. “They’re happy tears,” she said. “I’ve just missed you so much.”

  Ryan leaned his head down so that it rested on top of hers for a second, and my eyes filled with tears, too.

  Then Dad slid behind Mom and put his arm around her shoulders, and that terrible, terrible thought I couldn’t ignore after Family Weekend, that maybe Mom and Dad thought life would be easier without Ryan? That’s when I knew for absolute sure how wrong it was.

  “My tears are happy, too,” I told Ryan. And they were, partly, but they weren’t only happy. Because it was better, mostly, but also worse in a way, that Mom and Dad didn’t want Ryan to go away, but they still sent him.

  And after all these days and weeks I’ve spent wishing Ryan was home, now that he was, I had no idea what to say. I just froze there, a few feet away from him, until he smiled his familiar Ryan smile. He towers over me now, but he reached one hand down and tapped the top of my head twice before we pressed our palms together.

  “Hi, La-La,” he said.

  “Hey, Ry Guy.”

  He looked good. A little thinner in the waist than when I saw him last, and he was standing up straighter than he used to. Like he was feeling a little more comfortable. A little more confident.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked. “Or do you want to play the piano? Or should we go downstairs to see your fish?”

  Ryan didn’t say anything, so I kept on talking.

  “The tank looks pretty awesome,” I said, because the fish-tank guy had just come, so it was all algae-free. “You’ve probably missed your fish, right?”

  Ryan took in a long, shaky breath. I’d thought for sure he’d want to do one of those things, but maybe I was wrong? Maybe I didn’t get it anymore, what would make Ryan happiest?

  You’re always so tuned in to what Ryan needs, Jenna used to say, and it made me think of his piano in the living room—how happy it made him when we’d just had it tuned, and how he cringed and held his ears when it was time for the tuner to come back.

  Had he been gone so long and changed so much that we were out of tune now? That I didn’t know how to be his helpful sister anymore?

  Ryan reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out something red. One of the laminated name tags Mom had told us about, after Thanksgiving. He held it up.

  “Do you need a few minutes to yourself first?” Mom asked, and Ryan nodded.

  “I need a few minutes by myself first,” he said.

  Dad still had one arm around Mom, but he reached out his other arm toward me. I took a step closer to him and let him pull me in.

  It stung, Ryan not wanting to be with me right away. It stung a lot.

  But this was what he had worked so hard on with Jenna—stepping away when he needed a break. Telling other people what he wanted instead of sticking out something that made him uncomfortable until it was too much and he melted down. This was what he hadn’t been able do over the summer, when he visited me at camp, because he hadn’t wanted me to be unhappy.

  “Totally understandable, buddy,” Dad said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “You take as long as you need,” Mom added.

  Ryan flicked the fingers of his left hand, the one that wasn’t holding the little red sign, and his eyes jumped up toward me and then back down. “La?”

  Dad gently squeezed my arm, and I cleared my throat.

  “We’ll be right up here whenever you’re ready,” I said.

  Ryan smiled then and headed down the basement stairs. Dad kissed the top of my head, just like he’d done with Mom when he and Ryan came inside, and I leaned into him for a minute, letting my forehead rest against his chest in a way I hadn’t done in ages. On the other side, Mom did the same thing. We’re about the same height now, Mom and me, so my forehead came up at the same level hers did.

  “He’s home,” I said, because for some reason I just needed to say the words out loud.

  “He’s home,” Mom echoed. “He’s really home.”

  And once Ryan came back upstairs, we all sat at the table together—Ryan back in his usual seat across from me—and ate our chicken fingers and mashed potatoes. The chicken fingers had gotten a little dried out from staying in the oven too long, and I’d put a little too much milk into the mashed potatoes, but none of us cared.

  Ryan told us about how taking care of horses isn’t all that different from takin
g care of fish in some ways, and how he doesn’t mind broccoli and cauliflower when they’re roasted, but he only likes to water the kale and beets—not to eat them.

  And how he wrote a whole three pages about his compost project—the longest essay he’d ever written in his life—because he’d actually had something he wanted to say. And how much he likes being able to play songs based on how the notes look now.

  “I thought you liked playing your way,” I said. “Didn’t you hate it when your old teacher tried to make you read music?”

  Ryan’s mouth curled into a smile as he pointed at my glass of seltzer water. “I thought you hated fizzy drinks.”

  I wrapped my fingers around the cold glass. “I . . . not anymore. That was when I was little.”

  “I don’t hate learning to read music anymore, either,” he said. “I like how this teacher explains things. And this way I don’t have to wait to hear how someone else played a song before I can play it for myself.”

  I took a small sip of my seltzer, remembering how the bubbles used to tickle my nose, and I thought about all the ways I’d changed since I was a little kid who thought fizzy drinks were awful. Ryan had changed, too. Of course he had.

  After dinner, before he headed upstairs to get ready for bed, Ryan held his hand out to me again, so I could press my palm against his.

  “You seem really good, Ry,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’m happy. I told you.”

  And he had. When we were saying goodbye at Family Weekend. And he’d tried to show me in his video messages, too. I had been so focused on all the things I thought would make him happy that I hadn’t listened.

  And I guess this is the thing: It isn’t just that Ry is working on telling us what he needs. I have to work on listening, too.

  After Ryan and Mom had both gone up to bed, Dad called me down into the living room.

  The Eagles game was on the TV, paused. “I recorded it this afternoon, and I managed to avoid spoilers,” he said. “You didn’t watch it yet, did you?”

  I shook my head, and he patted the seat right next to him on the big sofa.

  “Then want to join me?”

  I’d already seen the final score, but I didn’t say that. I just sat down next to him.

  “Definitely,” I said as he pressed play.

  • • •

  The next day was Christmas Eve, and Mom was taking Ryan to visit Jenna at the OT center. She tried to get me to come along, but I couldn’t imagine seeing Jenna again now—not after I’d spent so many weeks picturing myself giving her all that money. Then Mom tried to convince me to go next door to “make things right” with Sierra, but I knew Sierra wouldn’t want to make up with me. That hole opened up in the pit of my stomach when I thought of all the little things she’d done and said to show me how much she hated that I was taking things and making her hide them, and how I hadn’t listened to her, either.

  “Let me stay here,” I begged. “I won’t go anywhere, I promise.”

  She didn’t used to mind if I went for a walk when she was out, but I was still on punishment, technically, and I knew it was going to be a while before she trusted me again the way she had before.

  She hesitated, but finally, after she called Dad at the office and found out he was leaving work in fifteen minutes, she gave in.

  To be honest, when she and Ryan first left, there was a part of me that wanted to leave, too, even though I’d just promised her I wouldn’t. I had at least forty-five minutes till Dad would be back, and I guess I sort of missed the thrill of doing something secret and against the rules. I could walk down to CVS and be back before Dad’s car pulled up. I hadn’t gotten gifts for anyone yet, and that way I could get everybody cards and candy canes for Christmas, at least.

  I pictured all the Christmas stuff on the shelves in CVS. And then, without even meaning to, I pictured that aisle of overpriced makeup. So many different kinds of mascara—lengthening, strengthening, volumizing, whatever that means. So many different shades of lipstick. I imagined myself grabbing one mascara and one lipstick, sliding them into the pockets of my coat. It would be so easy. It would feel so good to walk out of the store with that secret.

  But then my phone rang. Dad, calling to say he was stopping for milk and paper towels on the way home, and did I need anything else.

  “Laur?” he asked when I didn’t answer right away. “You there?”

  I thought of that disgusted look on his face when he found out about the stealing, and then the way he grinned and gave me a high five each time the Eagles scored last night.

  I shook off the idea of taking that CVS makeup and dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands, hard. What was wrong with me, even imagining that?

  “I’m here,” I told Dad, and I got an idea. “I could use a few ingredients, actually. Can you hang on a second while I find a recipe?”

  That night, with a little bit of help from Dad, I made Mariah’s dad’s Black Forest cake. I couldn’t wrap it up and put it under the tree for Mom, Dad, and Ryan to open, and I wasn’t sure Ryan would like the way the whipped cream got mushed together with the cherries. But at least I hadn’t bought stuff nobody would really want, and I had another idea for Ryan, anyway. Sheet music for Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos—the ones Dr. Lee’s friend had asked him to play. It should get here in time for New Year’s.

  When Dad and I finished icing the cake, it looked almost as good as the one Mariah’s dad had helped with, except the layers didn’t bake quite evenly, so the top was a little slanted to one side.

  I took a picture of the slightly slanted cake, and before I could talk myself out if it, I texted it to Jake right before I went to bed. I felt pretty terrible about the way I’d avoided him and then run off without even giving him a chance to respond the last day before break.

  Made the cake for Christmas dessert! Thanks for bringing me to your cooking lesson and sorry about everything after. Merry Christmas.

  At least that way I’d apologized to him, too. I didn’t expect a response, but the next morning, I woke up to one.

  I didn’t end up making it yet but yours looks great! A little nervous about messing it up. Maybe if you have any time you could come over and help?

  And then a second one: Just to make sure I don’t burn the kitchen down. And Merry Christmas!

  My heart sped up as I read his messages. How could he still want anything to do with me after what I’d told him? He’d liked me because he thought I was a good person. Why didn’t he hate me now?

  But even though it scared me, I figured I owed it to him to give things a chance if he actually still wanted to. I could already hear Mom, Dad, and Ryan downstairs, but before I went down to join them, I texted a response.

  Sounds like a safety hazard so I better come. Maybe next week?

  The idea of him texting back and suggesting an actual day was a little more than I could handle, so I kept my phone on silent, set it facedown on my bed, and headed down to my family.

  In the living room, in front of the Christmas tree, were two piles of neatly wrapped gifts: one for me and one for Ryan.

  Ryan got some new rocks for his little fish tank at school, T-shirts and sweats in his favorite, extra-soft brand, and some books about Ancient Egypt and environmental science. He got a super-expensive pair of headphones, too, and I flinched as he opened them, because his old headphones weren’t that old, and they still worked and all. The new ones did make him pretty happy, though.

  When Ryan had opened all his gifts and started testing out the headphones, Mom and Dad told me to open my presents, too. “Start with that red one,” Mom said.

  So I pulled off the snowflake-printed paper to find a small old velvet jewelry box. Inside were delicate stud earrings with green stones and gold posts.

  “They were your grandmother’s,” Mom explained. “Emeralds. Your birthstone and hers, too. I was waiting until you were old enough to appreciate them.”

  I rubbed a fingertip over the shiny round st
ones. Passed down, not brand-new. Every time I wore them, I’d think about how Grandma once wore them, too, not about how much they cost.

  “I love them,” I said, and Mom smiled.

  “Now the green one,” Dad said.

  Inside that box was a new Eagles jersey to replace the Brian Dawkins one I’d sold. It wasn’t signed, and the back said our last name, Collins, instead of a player’s name. And when I lifted it up, something fluttered out and landed in the box.

  “Tickets?” I asked Dad.

  “For the last game. Upper deck.”

  I got up to hug them both.

  “Hey, wait,” Dad said. “You have one more present to open.”

  My last gift was a small bag with two envelopes peeking out the top. I rummaged around for something else inside the bag, but all I felt was tissue paper. I picked up the thinner envelope first and read the return address.

  “This is from Ryan’s school?”

  “Just open it,” Mom said.

  It was a thank-you note from the school’s scholarship fund. “Did we make a donation?”

  Dad nodded. “Mom and I donated the money you earned selling things that belonged to you and Ry, and we added a little extra. I know you already know that what you did wasn’t right, but we’re proud of you for wanting to help other people.”

  “The scholarship fund is for kids who would benefit from the program at Piedmont, but their families can’t afford it,” Mom added. “So they can have the same chance Ryan’s getting.”

  And even though I still wish Ryan didn’t have to go so far away, I’m starting to understand, a little. It was a big deal, the way he’d told us he needed a break the night he came home. And I like how he’s excited about what he’s learning, and how he talks about his friend Ellie and a guy named Curt, who loves music and plays the guitar.

  “There’s one more envelope,” Dad said.

  He and Mom were looking at each other and smiling as I pulled it out of the bag. I almost didn’t want to open it, because I wanted to freeze this moment just how it was. Mom and Dad got it, what I’d been trying to do, even though I’d done it all wrong.

  But finally, I opened the second envelope to find a plain card with a message in handwriting I didn’t recognize. I scanned to the bottom to see who it was from.