Because my sister is in detox.
In a place with bright fluorescent lights and no sharp objects and strangers who don’t know that after the big dinner we’re supposed to all eat Mom’s homemade cinnamon ice cream sundaes and watch at least one Harry Potter movie (this year we’re on the third one, which is all of our favorites, and I bet Dad would have insisted we watch the fourth, too). Nate and Dad are supposed to argue about the aeronautical challenges of Quidditch, and Mom will decry the stereotype of Professor Trelawney and how it gives everyone the wrong idea about people like Mom and her coven, as Dad calls Cyn and Mom’s tarot friends. And Nah is supposed to be curled up on the couch with Micah, not some horrible Drug Boy who only wears black and probably secretly roots for the Yankees. And me? I’m just taking it all in.
But not this year.
This year, it just hurts too much to sit around the table. All those empty places. And knowing that, this year, maybe Dad’s place would have been empty, anyway. Even if there hadn’t been a wave.
I can’t think about him. I can’t. When I do, everything inside me goes completely dark. I become a black hole, too.
I wonder what Rebecca Chen is doing. And the wondering grows, because I think about my baby sister or brother and how it’d be really unfair if they were punished for what Dad did.
So I do something that surprises me, something spontaneous. Rash, even. I go to my room and send the email I’ve been writing and rewriting since my birthday, since I found out the truth about Dad and Rebecca, since Aunt Nora said, You don’t have to worry about that.
My Brother or Sister 3:17 PM (November 28th)
Mae Winters <[email protected]>
Rebecca Chen <[email protected]>
I know what happened. My sister found all your emails with my dad. I’m writing you because I don’t want this brother or sister I’m going to have to be punished for the poor choices of adults who forgot about the Butterfly Effect. This child deserves to know they have two sisters and that he or she or they are not alone in the universe. I want to be very clear: I think you’re a bad person for what you did. I think my dad is, too. My family is hurting right now even more because of this. You should know that. Also, my mom knew about the two of you when she died. She was found in a mass grave earlier this month, alone.
I would like to be notified when my brother or sister is born. And I’d like to have updates and be part of their life in some way, because they deserve that, and Hannah and I do, too.
Mae Winters
I don’t think I’m being disloyal to Mom by sending this email. I think she’d understand. She’d never want a kid to be hurt over something they can’t control.
In the late afternoon, we make our plates and sit in front of the TV. Just me and Aunt Nora, Uncle Tony, Nate. We don’t watch Harry. We watch White Christmas. A little early in the Winters holiday calendar, but I’m glad we do. Bing and Danny and “the girls”—I like the little cobbled-together family they decide to make at that Vermont inn. Strange, how a building falling down in a war zone can bring lonely people together. The Sisters bit makes me sad, though.
Ben went home for the holiday—he wasn’t going to. Wanted to stay with me. But I can feel those three words between us. The ones he had the guts to say, and I didn’t. I can feel him wanting more from me than I can give. Right now, everything is for Hannah. So I kissed him and told him to go to Brooklyn. Told him I’d see him when he got back. It wasn’t what he wanted.
When it gets dark outside, I grab my coat and head down the stairs, ignoring the closed door to my sister’s room. I say a quick goodbye, then head toward the T.
I’m on the Dharma Bums email list now, and they’re having a special meeting tonight, so I’m going. I want to look for the secret in the silence. My dad was always saying that you learn more when you get quiet. I need to learn more. I think maybe I have too much specialized knowledge. I know a lot about astrophysics and theoretical physics, but I don’t understand people. They are so different from theorems. So much harder to figure out. It’s possible that the hardest person to understand is myself.
I need the silence to tell me what to do. To tell me if it really was the right thing to cancel that interview. To tell me how to help my sister in the best way I can.
It’s cold tonight. No snow. Just banks of it left over from the storm. The D train rumbles behind me, a few blocks away, toward Boston Children’s, and I look over the houses and trees to where Nah is waiting for us to pick her up tomorrow.
My eyes flick up to the sky, but the sight of the moon tonight doesn’t make me feel better. It just reminds me how fast everything goes. The moon’s one light-second away, so every time you look at it, you’re actually seeing into the past. You’re time traveling. And I just want to keep going back. Not forward. Back. And back. And back. But I can’t.
I hurry down the sidewalk toward Beacon, to the T stop at Washington Square. The doors open and it’s pretty empty inside. Everyone with their families.
I don’t see him until I’ve transferred to the Red Line. He’s sitting across from me, staring at nothing. Maybe he’s seeing her. Trying to look past the stations that fly by, all the way back to Boston Children’s.
Drew Nolan couldn’t be more different from Micah if he tried. Micah was a sun god, bursting with light (even though he did turn out to be a horrible boyfriend who Nah refuses to ever speak to again), but Drew, he’s all night. Late night. When you should be safe in bed night. His face is cut like stone. Sharp. Black, wavy hair. Paler than me. A perfect manga villain.
He feels my eyes on him and finally looks up. Goes paler, if that’s possible.
From the look of him, he hasn’t gotten any more sleep than the rest of us. But I don’t care. The moment the seat next to him empties, I take it.
I keep my voice low, and he has to lean in to hear me above the roar of the train. “If you ever talk to my sister again, I’m calling the police. And informing the school administration that you’ve been selling drugs to students. I know you’re on scholarship, so I really hope you make the right choice.”
Drew turns to me, broken and desperate, and I do not care. I do not.
His voice is a rasp, a fraying rope. “I love her.”
“Fuck you.”
I cannot believe I just said that. Or how good it felt.
I lean close to his face.
“You sold her drugs. Do you have any idea what she’s been going through these past few days in detox?”
“She’s in detox?” Relief and hurt wash over his face.
I’m surprised she didn’t tell him. Maybe that was supposed to be a secret. But I’m done with secrets.
“Yeah, after a whole night out with you.”
“She wasn’t using with me that night. She drank, and I was watching out for her. Mae—”
“She could have died—she still might die.”
I say this louder than I mean to, and an old lady a few seats down glances at us over her copy of the Boston Globe. I never realized how lucky you are, if you get to be a senior citizen. I used to feel sorry for old people; I don’t anymore.
“These three days in the hospital—it’s only the beginning.” I am trying very hard to use my inside voice. “When she comes home, the doctors said she’ll likely be depressed. Craving. Sensitive to pain. There’s a higher risk of suicide. And if she relapses again and takes the same dose as she did before, her chances of overdosing are greater. You die from respiratory suppression. You stop breathing. You drown.”