Chapter 12 Neil

EVEN ON WINTERbreak, even back in my own bed, I am incapable of sleeping in. It's a marginal amount of relief—back in New York, those cold, darkness-shortened days between Thanksgiving and winter break somehow managed to feel eternal. Here, the fog of exhaustion I felt on the East Coast lifts, replaced by a soothing sense of comfort.

Home.I never imagined I'd be so happy to be here, surrounded by the familiar.

We keep the house a bit cooler to save on energy costs, but this winter I don't mind it, not when I'm essentially living in Rowan's violet NYU sweatshirt. The weather taunts us, that light layer of snow turning to slush right away, and then it's just gloom and gray onward through the end of December. I'm surprised to miss Skyler, but the worries I had in New York don't seem to exist here when I'm able to see Rowan almost every day.

That night with her on the couch, those three whispered words that sounded like a promise.

I hope so.

And the only way I could respond, the truthful way: Me too.

The morning of the fifth night of Hanukkah, a Saturday, all of us are home for breakfast together. A rarity, with my mom not having much time off. Christopher's just stepped out to run a few errands. He's not Jewish, but he loves celebrating the holidays with our family, and he's gotten extremely involved in the whole one-present-each-night component of Hanukkah, despite the fact that we've never really done it and it's mostly for kids. Still, it doesn't stop him from surprising my mom with something small each night: a candle, a new kettle, a toy for Lucy.

Natalie is at the kitchen table next to me, attacking the wax buildup on our menorah. "How is there so much in here," she mutters.

"That's part of its charm." My mom takes a bite of yogurt. She's in athletic wear, her red hair tied in a ponytail. Recently she stopped dyeing out the grays, informing us that she'd made her peace with the aging process. "All the wax from all the years we were too lazy to scrape off."

"It's art," I agree.

Lucy finishes her kibble and wanders over to the dining table, nudging at my leg until I let her drop her head into my lap. She must realize I'm the easiest target, and she's right because I sneak her a few Cheerios when no one is looking. Though she's slowly losing her vision, her sense of smell is as strong as ever.

My mom stirs yogurt around, glancing up at me and then back down, as though working up to something. I have a feeling some kind of serious discussion is coming. "Nat? Do you mind if I talk to your brother alone for a minute?"

"Fine, fine," she says, bouncing up from the table and toting the menorah down the hall to her room.

There's only sugary milk left in my bowl, but I wait at the table while my mom stands, opens a drawer beneath the coffeemaker, and pulls out an envelope.

"This came for you," she says, and I know without looking at it exactly what kind of letter it is and who it's from. "Last month, even though I've asked him to stop writing. I didn't want to tell you and have it be hanging over you, and then I wanted you to be able to enjoy Hanukkah with the Roths, and well… there's probably no good time to get these letters, is there? I hope that was okay."

"Yes. Of course. I wouldn't have wanted that either." I reach down to scratch behind Lucy's ears, as though this sweet dog will keep me from falling apart. Maybe she will.

My mom passes the envelope to me, and the Cheerios in my stomach threaten to crawl back up my throat. Each letter is formed so carefully that for a moment I worry I inherited my love of calligraphy from this man, too, before I realize that he probably had endless amounts of time to write this.

The previous letter I received, a week before graduation, is fresh enough that it's still rattling around in my brain. Hope to see you before you go to your fancy New York school.

This letter is long. Too long. And it's nothing I haven't read before—how much he misses us, how he's doing, how he fills his days.

And then, at the end:

Really hoping to see you soon. Maybe when you're home for Christmas?

Dad

The casual way he signs it, just "Dad"—that's the part that gets me. And the notion of being home for Christmas when my sister and I have always identified as Jewish, when he must know that "winter break" is how I'd prefer this vacation be acknowledged.

The smallest movement of his wrist to twist the tiniest of knives.

I fold the sheet of paper back up.

"So he's going the emotional manipulation route," I say dryly, as Lucy glances up at me with those soulful brown eyes to wonder why I've stopped petting her. I slide a hand back into her fur, trying to keep my voice even. "Please don't tell me that even though he's done some horrible things, he's still my father. We both know the kind of person he was before."

"I wouldn't," she says, walking around to my side of the table and draping a hand over my shoulder. "I can never apologize enough times."

"And I can never tell you enough times that you have nothing to apologize for."

We talked about it in family therapy. The guilt she felt over not leaving him when the Moods started, and the ensuing guilt over having those thoughts when he so clearly needed help. Help he refused to get.

We were all victims, our therapist said, and though it broke my heart to imagine my mom that way, she was right.

"I wish you didn't have to deal with this at all. You have no idea. When you're in New York, even though I miss you, I'm so, so happy for you. So proud of you. You know that, right?"

Slowly, I nod. She's never made it much of a mystery, the fact that she wanted me to do something big.

"Whatever role you want him to have in your life—or not—that is entirely your decision," she says. Another thing she's told me multiple times. "You have my full support."

The last time I saw him, I was sixteen. The three of us made the journey to Walla Walla together, four and a half hours in the car that felt like forty.

"I know that. Mom—I love you."

A hug. "You too. Always."

I rinse out my bowl and place it in the dishwasher while my mom heads out for a morning jog. Lucy trots behind me down the hall. This dog has always been so attuned to our moods, ready to give (or request) love when we're at our lowest. In fact, she wasn't even a cuddly dog until after my dad went to prison. Then she started sleeping with me or with Natalie when she used to prefer her own bed. Like she knew we needed it.

"I could hear you guys," Natalie says after I knock on her door. She's at her desk, still working on the menorah. "The walls in this house aren't very thick." And then, before I can decide what to say: "He sends them to me too, you know. The letters. Sometimes I don't read them."

I did know, but the letters to Natalie are more infrequent. She was so young when he left. So young now, too—too young to have to deal with this unfairness. Every time there's space between them, I hold out hope that they've stopped.

But then my overactive brain wonders the opposite. If they stopped, would it mean he no longer cared about us? Which would be worse: to be loved by a monster or not loved at all?

"I'm sorry." I lean against the doorway as Lucy leaps onto Natalie's bed, turning in two and a half circles before lying down. "It's not fair to you. It's… more complicated than it needs to be."

"I wish he'd just stop." Natalie's ponytail quivers just the tiniest bit. A hunk of wax lands on her neon-yellow nightgown, and she brushes it off. On paper, we couldn't be more different—her, with her love for adventure sports and bright colors, me with my preference for the indoors. This has eternally tied us together. She was five when he was arrested, and I used to envy her, if only a little, because she'd spent less of her life with him. But as I grew older, I realized that maybe I had it backward. Worse, I think, to have known the man only as he is now. I have never felt such a fierce protectiveness as I do over my sister—a desire not just to keep her safe from the world, but from our family.

Maybe the age gap prevented us from fighting with each other, or we figured our parents had enough to deal with. Whatever the reason, we've never had a disagreement that lasted longer than a few minutes.

She scrapes at the wax with renewed gusto, a small rainbow pile on her desk. "All Christopher has to do is the bare minimum, and he's already a million times better as a dad. Even if he's not our actual dad."

"He's pretty great," I agree, because we both know he does far more than the bare minimum. "Do you want to talk about any of it?"

She tries to shrug this off, but I don't miss the quiver of her chin. As tough as my sister wants us to think she is, she's still a kid. "It's bad enough that I barely remember him. I definitely don't remember anything good about him." She looks up at me, misty-eyed and curious. "Was there ever anything good?"

There was. Of course there was.

It's just that the anything good is trapped beneath a layer of impenetrable bad.

There were the times he'd take us to the park with puppy Lucy and we'd just let her run, and he'd marvel at how fast she was. When our whole family snuggled up to watch a movie, not caring the couch was threadbare or the TV was shitty or the fact that everyone else had already seen it in theaters when it came out.

When I was ten and my sister was four, we went to Ocean Shores on vacation. Wet sand and saltwater taffy. My dad chasing us into the water, even as we shrieked that it was too cold.

The last happy memory of all of us together.

Before the Moods and the ever-present exhaustion. Before the anger, before the night he changed all our lives.

"Some," I say finally.

He's invaded my brain too much lately. An unwelcome visitor, taking up space that doesn't belong to him.

The way this has affected my sister—the teasing at school, the fight she was in last year. I had plenty of it when I was in middle school. People would make jokes about my dad, try to pick fights with me to see how I'd react. Never with violence. I wish I could shield her from all of it, even though I know that's impossible.

All I can do is be there for her when she needs me.

"I've been practicing my tail drop," she says, already content to change the subject. "I almost have it."

"Yeah? You'll have to show me when the weather improves."

"Or we can beg Mom to take us to the indoor skate park next week," she says, making her eyes wide.

I laugh. "Of course. But you are not getting me on a board."

Natalie flings her arms wide, putting on a dramatic pout. "If you just let me teach you a few tricks—"

"Because it went so well last time?" I ask, rubbing a phantom bruise on my elbow.

"Not my fault that your center of gravity is all the way in like, Iowa."

"I missed you. Have I said that already?" I hug her tightly.

"Why did New York turn you into such a sap?" she says with a groan, even as she hugs me back.

"I've always been a sap. And I'm really glad you didn't actually turn my room into a unicorn skate park."

None of us have ever been very good at bowling, and yet that's where the Quad ends up when all our family obligations are over.

"Another gutter ball," Sean says with a good-natured sigh. "How many is that?"

"Five," Adrian and I reply in unison. On-screen, an animated ball drops off a cliff while "G-G-G-GUTTER BALL!" sounds through the speakers.

"Is there a way to turn that off?" Sean asks, sinking back onto the bank of chairs and taking a sip of soda. "I feel like it's getting louder."

I pretend to check the keypad. "Nope. None."

The whole afternoon has been tinged with nostalgia. The last time I was here, I bowled another imperfect game with my friends and discovered Rowan spying on our classmates, who were plotting to take us down during Howl. Tonight Rowan's out with Kirby and Mara, but we have plans to meet up for New Year's Eve tomorrow.

So many places in Seattle hold those memories.

I wonder if the East Coast will ever feel that way.

Adrian drapes an arm across the back of the empty chair next to him. "So we all know you and Rowan are madly in love. I am tragically single, despite my elite bowling skills compared to the rest of you." He lifts his eyebrows at Sean and Cyrus. "Anyone else?"

Sean says he's been indulging in the hookup scene at UW. "Zero regrets," he says.

"Maybe not from you, but from them. Once they see your bowling score," Adrian says, and Sean rolls his eyes.

"There's… this guy in my sociology class," Cyrus says, not quite making eye contact, as though worried how we'll react. He didn't date at all in high school, never talked much about anyone of any gender.

"That's awesome, Cy," Sean says.

I sit down next to him. "Tell us about him?"

And he gets this wild grin on his face. "We've hung out a few times, just gotten food or met up to study. He's a really great artist, and he's drawn a bunch of scenes from my favorite anime.…" At that, he pulls out his phone to show us, and we nod and whistle appreciatively.

Quad life, indeed.

When we take a break for terrible nachos in between games, my mind wanders back to the letter. I haven't mentioned it to Rowan yet, and there are only seven more days until we go back.

When I told her about my dad in June, it wasn't because I was hoping for sympathy. I hadn't planned to tell her at all, of course, but once I let her into my house, into my room, it was as if all the fences I'd worked so hard to build around myself started to lower. Even deep in my unrequited feelings for her, I never imagined opening up in that particular way.

Yet I did. And even if I told her I didn't want her pity, I don't know how to guarantee she won't feel it this time, now that we're dating. Probably because I can't. For weeks afterward, I wondered if I'd told her too much. I didn't regret it, exactly, but I also couldn't take it back. Couldn't go back to the Neil McNair I'd been before June 12, although for obvious reasons, I didn't want to. She knew the basics, and she loved me. It could be as simple as that, couldn't it? We didn't need to analyze every ugly piece of history.

Maybe she thinks I've moved on—that single confession, and no mentions of it since then, only in passing. "My parents used to drive a Honda Accord too," or "my dad built that shed in the back."

And maybe it's better for her to believe that. For both of us.

I'm still thinking about it later that night in my room, propped in bed with a textbook. Even though fall semester is over, NYU has something called January term sandwiched between the fall and spring semesters. Along with a couple other core requirements, I picked another psych class for spring—Adhira will be thrilled—and a linguistics seminar for January, and I want to get a head start on my reading for both. But my mind is drifting. Unfocused, although academics have always managed to hold my attention. Then my eyes start drooping, and—

A commotion at the front door jolts me awake. I spring out of bed, abandoning my textbook as I stumble down the hall, Natalie following behind me. My mom and Christopher have just come in from the cold, their hair windblown and cheeks stained red. They're in matching puffy coats they got from Costco last year. They're both grinning, glowing, and I think my mom might even be giggling. "Mom?" I ask, though it's such a sweet and unexpected sound. "Is everything okay? I thought you were going to be out for a while."

"We had to come back and tell you two." Christopher's arms are around my mom's waist, holding on to her like he can't bear a single second he isn't touching her. In an instant, I understand what's happened. "Joelle?"

My mom presents her left hand to a shrieking Natalie. "We're engaged!"

My sister catapults herself into our mother's arms as my mouth drops open. And then I can't stop smiling. I'd wondered about this, of course—impossible not to when they'd been dating for a couple years. Sometimes I even hoped for it.

"Mazel tov! That's incredible," I say, hugging my mom and then Christopher.

"I feel like the luckiest guy alive. I was so nervous." He swipes a hand across his bald head, as though reliving the anxiety. "I'd arranged with the restaurant for the ring to be carried out on one of these decadent slices of chocolate cake—"

"—but I said I was too full from dinner," my mom finishes, laughing. "And he looked so worried."

"I didn't know what I was going to do," he says. "So I said that I'd have the cake myself, but then the waiter brought it to the wrong table!"

"He had to politely ask them if he could have their piece of cake. I was so embarrassed."

"Until the cake finally found its way to the person it was meant for." Christopher shakes his head. "Not exactly the romantic engagement I had in mind."

"That only made it all the more charming," my mom says, and the two of them embrace again.

It's then that I make a decision with full conviction: I cannot tell Rowan about the letter. I don't want her to associate us only with sorrow, and I never want her to look at me with pity.

It doesn't have to be a secret. It can simply be nothing, the way I spent so many years acting like it was.

Besides, I'll have this much better news to tell her instead.

Christopher rummages in the kitchen for sparkling cider and finds none, so we all toast with orange juice instead. I try my best to soak it all in, the four of us sipping juice from wineglasses while Natalie begs for a full play-by-play of the evening.

One perfect happy moment for a family that hasn't had nearly enough of them.