Dear Jon

  “I know, Jon,” he says. “But that wasn’t your job. It was hers.”

  “You’re right. It was totally her job, but when she couldn’t do it, someone had to step in.”

  “I’m glad you helped.”

  “Well, I’d do anything for my brothers.” I shove him playfully. “What about you? Would you do anything for us?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Because after this summer, Will, I probably won’t be able to make any more trips like this. And I worry about Mom. I worry she’ll fall back into her old habits, and I need to know that you can take care of yourself and Max, if it comes to that.”

  “How so?”

  “You have Patty here, so even if Mom slips, you should be okay… but we don’t know Patty very well, and I know it’s tough to trust people you hardly know. I think you’d still feel on your own, even with our aunt here to help. Does that make sense?”

  “How would I take care of Max?”

  “The same way I’ve taken care of you. Make sure you have something decent to eat in the house. Play ball with him to keep him active. Give him books to read, and make sure he does his homework. If he has commitments, whether they’re school related, or games, or parties, make sure he makes them. And if he needs to talk, lend him an ear. Try to give him good advice. If you can’t think of any, then call me.”

  “That sounds easy.” I think back to the past fifteen years. None of it was ever easy.

  “Sometimes you won’t want to do it,” I tell him. “Sometimes you’ll want to hang out with your friends, or a girl, but you have to promise me you’ll keep an eye on him. Keep him out of trouble. Call me whenever you want if you need help, and feel free to go to Patty, too. She’s a good person who’s welcomed you into her home.”

  “Do you think we’ll ever go back to Manhattan?”

  “I hope so. When I graduate, I’ll bring you back out if you want to come. Hopefully your grades will get you into any college you choose.”

  “What if I don’t want to go to college?”

  “Why wouldn’t you want to go to college?”

  “Because I don’t want to cost anyone money.”

  “Nobody thinks of college as an expense that doesn’t have significant dividends, Will. It’s an investment. And I’ll send you all of my test prep books so you can start studying now. You could get a free ride to college if you put your mind to it.”

  “You did it.”

  “I did. I did it to prove that you could, too.”

  “I’m not as smart as you.”

  “I disagree with that. You’re just as smart as I was at fifteen.” That might be a lie, but he really has no memory to compare himself to. He was just a kid with kid things on his mind. But I see no harm in letting him believe that. He could be as smart as me, if he applied himself more. That’s what I need to convince him to do, and I think I’ve done a good job with the reading so far this summer. That’s key. “Just study. Focus. Don’t get too distracted by girls.”

  He grins at me. I fear that girls may be his downfall.

  “You’re allowed to get a little distracted. That’s part of growing up.”

  “There’s a girl from school that I like.”

  “Yeah?” I ask when we get to the front yard.

  “Yeah. Maybe I’ll call her tonight.”

  “You have her number?”

  “She wrote it in my yearbook.”

  “That’s a good sign,” I tell him with a smile. “Can you do me a favor first?”

  “What?”

  “Put in some time with Max tonight. I need him to trust you like he does me. Can you take him for a run?”

  “I don’t know,” he hedges.

  “Come on. Please?”

  “He’ll be disappointed you aren’t taking him.”

  “Initially, maybe, but once you start having fun with him, he’ll forget all about me. Please?”

  “Okay,” he finally agrees.

  “I’ll send him out.”

  I’m winded, and finally feeling a little bit of exhaustion. I was wondering if the steroid shot had just kicked in late, but after the run, I’m finally starting to feel like I should feel after 8 hours of manual labor and a half-hour run.

  “Max,” I pant. “I think my strep is lingering a little. I’m worn out,” I tell him. “Will said he wants to keep running, though. Go with him?”

  “I wanted to go with you,” he says.

  “If I could, I would, buddy, but don’t let Will down, okay? He wants to go with you.”

  “He does?” Max asks, looking surprised. I nod my head. He hops up, bounding to his room to put on his sneakers. “Cool! Bye!” In his excitement, he nearly runs into the glass door on the way out, setting him into a frenzy of giggles when he gets to the front yard.

  Catching my breath, I see the pile of mail on an old secretary desk in the dining area. I hadn’t received a letter since Wednesday. Finding nothing in the stack, I wonder if she finally gave up on me. A part of me thinks it’s about time. Another part wishes she hadn’t gotten over me so easily.

  No sooner does the thought come that I notice an envelope on the floor. It’s from her. I feel relief… and then I feel depressed. Quietly, I make my way to my room and shut the door, sliding out of my shoes before lying down on the bed.

  I love you, Jon.

  Happy birthday.

  That was months ago. We celebrated together. I remember the present she gave me. She’d taken me downstairs to the media room in her house, and hanging over the oversized reclining chairs was an illustration of The Getty Center done by Richard Meier, one of my idols. At first, I was jealous, wondering why the Hollands would have something like that hanging in their basement, but realizing its value, I figured it was some sort of investment for Jack. I’d never told Livvy about my interest in Meier’s work, so even though it was my birthday, the thought that it was my gift never crossed my mind.

  But it was.

  “It’s the only one of its kind,” Livvy had told me. “And it’s signed.”

  And it was.

  I’d seen his illustrations of the building before, but not from this angle and not with these colors. It was incredible. My heart was racing as I took in the details, eventually removing it from the wall to get a closer look.

  “Do you like it?” she’d asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “I asked Fred for ideas,” she said. “He listed some names, and I went on the hunt for something good.” My roommate shared my fascination with Meier, and I couldn’t wait to see his face when I hung the rendering on our dorm room wall.

  “I don’t know what you did to get this, Livvy, but this is the most incredible gift I’ve ever been given.”

  “Really? This? I’ve given you other things,” she said softly, careful not to be overheard if anyone was listening from the foyer upstairs. “I’ve given you better things.”

  I set the framed artwork down and pulled her into me. “Aside from you… but I don’t see you as a possession, Olivia,” I told her. “And anything I’ve taken from you, I hope you feel I’ve given equally in return.”

  “I do,” she’d said. “You have.” I kissed her then, and I kept kissing her until her father came downstairs to wish me a happy birthday.

  After that, she took me to a sushi place that the architect had once said was his favorite restaurant. The food was fresh and my company was perfect, but I’d greedily hoped that Livvy had found a way for us to be alone to celebrate after we ate.

  “That’ll have to wait until your 20th birthday,” she said as I kissed her curbside in front of her home. “But I promise, I’ll make it happen.”

  Another promise broken, I guess. Putting the memories behind me, I finally delve into the letter.

  We celebrated a couple things that day: your eighteenth year of life, and your acceptance into Columbia.

  So we’ve gone back a year, I guess. I wish we were talking about my 19th birthday, because I don’t hav
e a lot of great memories from my 18th. Some of it was my fault, for taking her with me to my uncle’s bar, but her actions the following day were totally her responsibility. She was to blame for that aftermath.

  Nothing I said or did that day or the next was meant to hurt you. I definitely spoke out of turn and gave you false hope when it wasn’t mine to give. I just wanted all of your dreams to come true, because I knew how hard you’d worked for them. I just wanted you to be happy.

  In the haze of tequila, I saw everything clearly. I saw our future together, and I was ready to leave my parents’ side to make that happen, no matter who got hurt in the process–as long as it wasn’t you.

  But I ended up hurting you, too.

  I never wanted that to become habit, or something you expected from me. I don’t want you to think that since I’ve hurt you twice now, I’ll keep doing it. I won’t, Jon. I swear I won’t.

  No need to swear, Liv. You can’t hurt me if I stop caring about you. And I swear, I will. Someday, I will.

  I haven’t forgotten my promise to you for your twentieth birthday, either. I hope you’ll let me keep that promise.

  I want to spend the rest of your birthdays with you, and I want you there for mine. My eighteenth is coming up, and I’m hoping we will have worked through things by then–

  How can she be so positive that we’re going to work things out!? I know if the tables were turned, and I’d sent her countless letters to which she never responded, I think I’d start to lose hope at some point. She obviously works differently, though. Maybe it’s time to compose a letter to her. Maybe it’s time to voice the words I haven’t yet said, and really never wanted to have to say to her.

  Why? Because it would hurt her? Why spare her feelings any longer?

  I’m hoping we will have worked through things by then and that this mistake I made and this pain I caused you will be things of the past. I hope you will someday forgive me.

  We aren’t finished.

  Eighteen

  I decide to text Fred, and find out if he’d done what I asked him to do on the day I moved out.

  “I couldn’t throw that drawing away,” he says in his message. “It’s priceless.”

  “I understand,” I respond, feeling relieved that he didn’t follow through with my rash decision.

  “It’s hanging back in my room,” he admits, “and I’ll be happy to return it to its rightful owner when we move back on campus this fall.”

  “Maybe I won’t want it,” I reply.

  “Maybe you will,” he counters.

  Maybe I will.

  DEAR LIVVY

  Livvy,

  This has to stop. I’ve received ten letters from you, and not once have you apologized to me for what you did. That should have been the first thing you wrote, the last thing, and pretty much everything in between. Instead, I get brief reminiscences of the good times.

  You know what? There are no more good times. Every time you reflect back on one, it goes sour for me because I can’t un-see you kissing Finn.

  The one time I’m not immediately there for you, you reach for someone else. I had every right to waver on whether or not I’d come to your graduation. Hurtful things were said and done the night before, and I didn’t appreciate the way you handled yourself. Every time I thought you were gaining independence and growing into the woman I wanted to be with, you’d do something stupid, desperate and immature. This one outranks them all.

  I thought you’d get the hint that I wanted things to end by not responding to your letters, but I guess indifference doesn’t really register to you. You need everything spelled out to combat your ignorance and arrogance.

  We are finished. Does that sound familiar? Sort of? Well, I’m tired of you telling me that we aren’t. We most certainly are, Livvy. It’s my choice to make, and I’ve made it.

  “Choisie.” Not anymore. I un-choose you now, Livvy Holland. I can’t be with someone who kisses another guy and then thinks she can just skate past it like it meant nothing. I mean, even if that kiss meant nothing to you, it said so much to me. It told me I wasn’t good enough for you. It told me you had to look elsewhere for happiness. It told me you were impatient. It told me you were heartless and faithless. It told me you were unstable. It told me you were too needy for what I could give you. I’d started to figure that out long before you kissed him.

  When I went to meet you under the tree like you asked, I was ready to tell you I wanted to help you. I wanted to point out the fact that you weren’t yourself anymore. I’d tried to convince you of that without coming out and saying it, but again–I understand you need to have things clarified. I made assumptions that you knew yourself, that you knew who you were, who you are, and who you were becoming. You knew none of that. Flailing, you needed help, and you grabbed hold of Finn when I was minutes away.

  Two minutes, Liv! That’s it! Waiting two more minutes, and I’d still be at your side. Granted, I’d never know if you and Finn shared feelings for one another. Did you? Do you? I need to know it all, Liv. I need to know every act of betrayal, physical or emotional… I need to know when your feelings for me changed. Was it truly just in that second, for that second? From your letters, I can infer that’s what you want me to believe.

  But I don’t know what to believe.

  All I know is that I never once felt the urge to kiss another girl while I was with you. To me, a kiss is an expression of love and desire. What’s it to you? A desperate attempt for attention? Like you didn’t have enough of that? You had two hovering parents. You had countless aunts and uncles who would do anything for you. You had me. And you had loyal friends–some relatives, some not–and one Finn.

  What kind of attention did you want that day? What did you want from him? And did he give it to you?

  Are you sorry?

  We are finished. I just felt like reiterating that.

  Stop writing to me.

  Jon

  UNGRATEFUL

  “Does God exist?” Will asks me after my shower Wednesday night. I’m a little taken aback by his question. Isn’t he too young to ask questions like that?

  I was thirteen. I think that’s right. I’d discussed it with my father before he passed away. I guess it’s time to ask existential questions, since he hasn’t before. Not of me, anyway. I hate to think what the answers would be if he’d asked Mom, or his father.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I read the part about the Babel fish, and it says God doesn’t exist.”

  “First of all, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Will, The Hitchhiker’s Guide is fiction.”

  “I know,” he says. “I’m not stupid… but it got me wondering. I’ve wondered before, but I wasn't sure it was okay to wonder that.”

  “Of course it’s okay to wonder things; to question things. Even things about God.”

  “Well? Is he real?”

  I smile at him, trying to remember the things my dad told me. He was a smart man with good advice, even if I ultimately didn’t share in his beliefs.

  “It’s not really cut and dry like that,” I start. “It’s kind of like if I asked you the meaning of life.” He looks at his hands pensively. “I’m not asking you that, by the way. But, let’s say I did ask you that, and I asked Mom that and I asked Max that. I’d probably get three different answers, wouldn’t I?”

  “But that’s an open-ended question,” he tells me brightly. I smile, proud that he sees a difference, even if it takes me off-topic. “I asked you a yes or no question.”

  “I can only give you an open-ended response, though. Ask me if I believe in a god.”

  “Do you?”

  “I do.”

  He nods his head, contemplating my response. “Why?”

  “Good question.”

  I first tell him about the conversation I had with my father. He’d met my dad before, but really had very little to do with him. Will has told me before that he thought my dad was cold, detached and hard to read. He was.
But when we really got to talking about things he was passionate about, I felt closer to him.

  My dad was very scholarly and well-educated. He believed in hard facts, and couldn’t muster any faith in anything, really, but especially not in God. “Evolution doesn’t lie,” he’d told me, and when I was younger, I immediately saw where he was coming from.

  “But the fact that you can see evolutionary details in our solar system and planet and species doesn’t mean that there isn’t a god,” I explain to my brother. “In my mind, they can co-exist, and they do.”

  “So your dad didn’t believe in God?”

  “Nope,” I tell him plainly. “From what I can tell, he never did.”

  “Is your dad in Hell?” Will asks, careful with his words.

  “He certainly doesn’t think so,” I respond, “since he didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell.”

  “But then he is in Hell, because he didn’t believe, right?”

  “If you believe that, then you must believe in God…”

  “I just…” he begins, looking conflicted. “It’s what we’re taught.”

  “I know.” I say I know, but I wonder where he was ‘taught’ this. Not in school. Not in our home. “Who’s teaching you this?”

  “My dad.” I look away so he doesn’t see the look of disgust on my face. His dad, the convicted felon, the man who knocked up my mother not once, but twice, and left her to raise their children on her own while he philandered and stole things and set a horrible example… his dad is the person teaching him about faith and God and Heaven and Hell.

  I should have been talking to my brothers about this a long time ago. No wonder Will’s confused. I finally look up at him and force a pleasant expression.

  “So your dad,” he starts again, “do you think he’s in Hell?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I’m not sure I believe in Hell.”

  “But the Bible says that if you don’t believe in God, you go to Hell.”

  “I understand that’s what the Bible says. I understand that my response contradicts traditional Christian beliefs, or the beliefs of many religions. But faith in a god goes beyond religions, right?”