They had just celebrated Lily’s graduation from high school when the older lady suffered a massive stroke. Three days later she died. For months, Will had watched his sister carefully, worrying about her sobriety, until she told him that caring for Gran made her the strongest she’d ever been. Soon after, she got back into the world, slowly. First with a job at a bookstore near Gran’s place in the Hudson Valley. Then moving back to New York. Gran had left Lily her house in the will, but their dad contested it and was happy to fight his daughter in court until the end of time.
Tonight, all these years later, Lily had settled with their father and started fashion school. She’d reentered the world. Will looked at his sister with admiration. When did she become the strong one?
She kept going in a firm voice. “We’re going to be honest, we’re going to put the work in, and we’re going to make it happen.” It was a mantra she picked up during recovery. Usually, it didn’t have an effect on Will, but today he felt a tiny prick of his conscience. If he was going to be honest, then he should probably tell his sister about how things had gone down with EJ, and why. He sighed at the thought. But not today. No need to ruin Christmas.
Instead, as Sean and Zara took pictures and called their publicists, Will and Lily went back to the guest bedroom to read. “Hey, big bro, you got a couple of think pieces,” Lily reported, glancing up from her phone. “It’s about your SNL cameo.”
Will raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “I was in a sketch and a half.”
“It was enough to remind this lady that you’re funny and that the show only just got an East Asian male cast member. Also, you’re a GIF.” She scrolled down that article and handed her brother the phone. Will looked at himself. He would be ripping open his shirt on the internet forever.
“At least I spent last semester getting abs,” he commented.
“The second article is an open letter to SNL, thanking them for acknowledging your hotness.” Lily made a face. “The one thing I really dislike about you being famous is having to hear people talk about how sexy you are—it’s uncomfortable.”
Will socked her with a pillow. She found one and socked him back. By the time Zara came upstairs to get them, the siblings were lodged in a full-on pillow battle.
“As much as it touches me to see you two engaged in some old-fashioned nonsense, knock it off! You almost took out my Girl Scout troop picture from sixth grade.”
Lily and Will dropped their pillows remorsefully. “Sorry, Zara,” they said in unison.
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I came up to ask if you wanted to watch our SNL episode again. Sean hasn’t seen it yet.”
“Sounds good,” Will replied. “Though I don’t know if Lily can take my sexy abs on your stepdad’s shiny new TV.” He dodged the pillow Lily launched at his head and ran down the stairs laughing. This is a merry Christmas, he thought. How about that?
EJ
By the time EJ parked in her parents’ driveway, she’d put the whole thing with Will/Jordan out of her mind. Frankly, she had bigger problems. The awkwardness from Thanksgiving still lingered. Though she was still happy to be home, everything had a sort of heaviness. EJ wondered when she’d have the courage to talk with her mom. It had to be her mom; her dad would find a way to turn it into an argument. She just needed to say her piece.
A few days later, on Christmas Eve-Eve, EJ woke to find herself alone in the house. She had no dogs to walk, no people to visit or children to babysit, so she did an unhurried stretch and resolved to remain in her pajamas all day. “This is a Lord of the Rings trilogy kind of day,” she said before heading to the kitchen to make popcorn.
Many hours later EJ was cheering as the warning beacons of Gondor were lit, when the front door opened with a creak.
“Hello,” her mom called into the house. “Is anyone home?”
“I’m in the basement, Momma,” EJ called up.
Ordinarily, EJ would have rushed up the stairs to hear about her mother’s day, but after her sister’s recent revelations, she quelled that urge mutinously.
“Ella? Would you come upstairs, darlin’?”
As she climbed, EJ acknowledged she was no good at rebellion. It was uncomfortable—as was sustained anger at her parents. “I’m definitely going to have to have a difficult conversation before I head back to Longbourn,” she mumbled to herself.
When she reached the foyer, EJ saw that her mother was still wearing her winter coat and pulling her boots on.
“Still in your pj’s, baby girl? Come on, get dressed and take a walk with me up the trail.”
The trail was one of the main reasons EJ’s parents had settled on this house. It started a couple of blocks down from where their street stopped in a dead end. When you started walking, it didn’t take more than ten minutes to be completely surrounded by trees. Though it was owned by the parks and planning department, the trail was wilder than most, either through neglect or design. That suited her mom fine. She was a nature lover and former Girl Scout. EJ and her mom both loved the trail and had several important life conversations on these walks through the woods. It looked like they were about to have another one.
“Where is Daddy?”
“Out last-minute shopping,” she responded too casually.
“Okay, I’m gonna go get changed.”
EJ got dressed, and before long, they’d passed the neighbors’ houses, with their Christmas wreaths on the doors and deflated Santa Clauses on the front yards. It was late afternoon, but not yet dark, so none of the electronic displays were active.
On the trail, they made their way to the woods in pregnant silence. She knew Maya had called home and told them about everything on the train. She knew that she’d been more distant in her calls home since then, when she remembered to call. She knew that her mom had noticed. But as much as she wanted to find out the real reason her parents had taken her out of dance school, she didn’t know where to begin.
Thankfully, her mother had no problem starting the conversation. “Maya told me that we need to talk—your father said the same thing. Where should we begin, Ella?”
EJ thought before speaking.
“Okay, on the train ride up to Boston, Maya presented an interesting theory on why I had to leave the Capitol Ballet School.” It was the only opening she could think of that wasn’t an accusation, which she wasn’t ready for.
Her mother hummed thoughtfully. “Parents don’t like to acknowledge this, but often when families are equally matched two-to-two like we are, I think each parent tends to get their stamp on one child. Maya and your daddy are the exact opposite in interests, but they both see the world the same way: in black and white. You and I see the gray, the nuances. I know you understand how . . . multifaceted something can be. You, better than your sister, will understand when I say that there wasn’t a reason we had to stop; there were reasons.” She let that lie between them and turned her eyes back to the path. EJ wondered if that was all her mother had to say on the matter.
“Reasons?” she dared, hoping for more of an answer.
“Our priorities were out of whack, baby girl. We righted them. Money was tight, our lovely old house needed several repairs we’d been putting off—that was the summer of buckets, remember? The school’s fees were rising, and we didn’t trust the staff as much as we used to. We had to be responsible parents. The money we saved on dance went right into your college fund. We didn’t need to take out a loan for your tuition until this year.”
“I didn’t realize you needed to,” she said softly. “I thought my college fund was covering your contribution.”
Her mom gave a dry laugh. “I wish. The tuition goes up every year. Cost of living goes up every year. Grants stay the same—or shrink. So we pay a little more.”
“Oh.” EJ felt foolish. She’d quietly prided herself on not taking her parents for granted, and yet she hadn’t even noticed everything they were doing for her, without complaint. She was the only one of her smart/nerdy circle of friends wh
o went away to school. It wasn’t because her friends were any less intelligent—Kayla was more talented with computers—it was because her parents were both willing and able to let her go.
“That is the whole truth. Do with it as you will.” They walked for a bit longer. EJ gazed at the bare-limbed trees. They were passing a smaller copse of ghostly birches when her mother spoke again, softly but firmly.
“But know this, Ella Bella: I am your mother first, last, and always. That means I want you healthy and happy. I will not compromise one for the other. You’re grown now, so you get to decide how you feel about our methods, but it changes not a thing for me. When I saw how you wouldn’t go near ballet again, I knew we had gotten you out just in time. Remember how we offered to pay for a smaller studio a year later? You said no. I guess you didn’t want anything but the best pro-track studio.”
Her mother sighed. “That was what really made me sad. I didn’t realize your ambition had overwhelmed your love of ballet itself. But once you were out of training mode, you didn’t even want to see The Nutcracker anymore.”
EJ felt like she’d just been slapped. Her face flushed with astonished heat. “That wasn’t it! That wasn’t why, at all. It just hurt too much; it still hurts.”
She stopped their progress on the path. “Putting ballet to the side meant imagining a whole new future for myself. Since I chose engineering, it meant changing gears entirely. I needed a plan to get into a good college. That meant switching to all AP classes and the right extracurriculars. It meant strong SAT scores and a whole lot of work. And since money was an issue, I didn’t feel comfortable going for anything that wasn’t free.” She sniffed. “I don’t know, maybe I could have gone back to dance, changed styles—tried out for poms. I don’t know! The point is that I’ll never know!”
Suddenly she realized she’d been shouting. EJ stopped short and wrapped her arms around herself. “I just wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me everything,” she finished softly. “I wanted to be the one you could talk to.”
Her mother looked at her sadly. After a moment, she closed the space between them and held her close. EJ could just hear the sound of her own noisy breathing. When Momma went to speak, again, her voice was raspy and low.
“I’m sorry, baby girl, that was our mistake. We should have been paying more attention. I honestly thought you’d moved on, fed your competitive side with the robotics and your creative side with the school musicals and practicing your piano. They were things you loved—”
“But they weren’t ballet!” EJ softly interjected.
“No,” her mom conceded. “They weren’t.” Her sigh was a small cloud just beyond her lips. “Losing a dream that young must have felt like losing the love of your life.”
EJ nodded and sniffled. She could feel her eyes sting with unshed tears. Her mother drew her close again, and she let her head fall on her mother’s shoulder.
“Go on, my sweet baby Ella. You’ve got to mourn it to let it go. That’s where we went wrong the first time. We didn’t notice you keeping it all inside.”
EJ hated this. She didn’t want to cry, but after the first sob escaped, she couldn’t keep them back. She stood among the trees and cried while her mother held her.
On the walk back to the house, EJ turned over her mother’s words and tried to smooth them like a salve over the lingering feeling of betrayal. Is this, she wondered, one of those quiet moments where you can choose the way your life will go? Maybe because it was senior year, and everything felt so important and so final, EJ saw two choices before her, like alternate paths through a wood: she could forgive but draw away from her parents, or work on understanding and accepting the steps that led to her life now, including the decisions her parents made back then.
Momma stopped their progress again. “Would you look at that sky,” she said in wonder.
EJ looked through a break in the trees. The clouds were tinted with pink and purple as a blood-orange sun sank toward the horizon. EJ thought of the first time she and her mother watched the sunset from that very spot. How her mother gave her a love of the outdoors and made her unafraid of dirt or bees. She thought of her father’s gifts: his gentleness and wanderlust. She thought of the many ways her parents supported her. Memory after memory bubbled up, making EJ consider all that her parents meant, beyond this single incident. She knew she wouldn’t trade the dance career that might have been for everything her parents were to her.
At the end of the trail, EJ stood with her mother and watched the sunset. Then, arm in arm, they walked back to the house. When they got inside, Daddy was putting away groceries. As her father stretched to reach a high shelf, EJ sidled up to him and wrapped him in a hug. The tension from his back released, and he kissed her on the forehead.
After the reconciliation in the woods, EJ wasted no time reconnecting with her parents. Over the break, she brought her mom and dad up to speed on the Fields Fellowship and the meeting she’d had with her advisor. Her dad was extremely pleased that she was going for the prestigious prize. Her mom, on the other hand, seemed prouder that EJ figured out what she wanted from the fellowship first.
“The difference between finishing a postgraduate program and dropping out is often knowing what you want to do afterward,” she said. Her mom was a guidance counselor and kept in touch with many of her former students. Several of them still asked her for advice.
EJ spent the rest of her break doing the things she loved: she got together with her friends from grade school and, for the first time in years, reached out to some of her old friends from ballet. Emotionally, she still wasn’t up for seeing The Nutcracker; instead her mom took her to A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Shakespeare Theatre.
Sitting in the familiar space, EJ thought back to Maya’s words: “The world is not as altered as you think.” Then the house lights dimmed, and a hush fell over the audience. EJ felt that wonderful shiver of anticipation that she felt before every show. She squeezed her mom’s hand and smiled; she couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
SPRING SEMESTER
Jamie
As much as college was supposed to be about sharpening intellect and the like, what most people remembered were the rituals. Sure, they were often lumped in with the more rational term of tradition, but sophomores painting the statue of Wally for good luck before exams or seniors standing on the quad with candles were all tapping into something primal. Something humans had done for centuries, without a degree. These small but meaningful actions that somehow helped ground you and get you through to the next thing. Two of Jamie’s favorite rituals were happening today: waffles at the dining hall in the morning, and in the evening, there was Hearth Night, her favorite Bennet House tradition. She found them both very cleansing.
At the first weekly waffles of the new semester, Jamie, EJ, and Tessa grabbed a table by the window. EJ was telling them about the trouble getting vegan marshmallows in town when Tessa’s phone began to ring. T glared at the screen and angrily declined the call.
“What was that about, hon?” EJ asked with concern.
“Colin’s been texting me all morning, like it’s going to make a difference. We are so very done.”
They were sitting around a hexagonal table on the second floor of the dining hall. A light snow was falling outside. Tessa pushed her tray away and slumped forward on the table. “I haven’t been in a relationship for the past few months—I’ve been on a roller coaster.” She sat up with a groan.
“First we had that fight at the Fall Formal. Then we made up. Then we had another fight, and it was radio silence since Halloween. Then he wrote that very sweet Christmas card over Winter Break. I let him call me, and he says things will be different this semester: that he’ll listen more, be more considerate. And today he FaceChats me and tells me he’s in Sydney.”
“He’s in Australia?” EJ exclaimed. Tessa nodded miserably, tracing patterns in the remaining syrup on her plate.
She went on. “Apparently, he found a s
tudy-abroad program there, applied in November, and got in over Winter Break. He said nothing of this to me until this morning but seemed surprised when I told him this meant that we’re definitely over.”
“Asshole!” Jamie spat. “How was he surprised that this wouldn’t go over well?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s what kills me.” Tessa sniffed. “This is just more proof that he doesn’t listen to me. If there’s one thing I’ve been crystal clear about, it’s that I am not interested in doing a long-distance relationship.”
EJ patted her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, honey bear. I know how much you wanted things to work out with him.”
Jamie snorted. She couldn’t help it.
Tessa smiled a little. “I thought you didn’t like Colin.”
“Oh I couldn’t stand him, no way,” EJ responded. “But you saw something in him, so I was willing to keep my mouth shut.”
Jamie expanded on this theme. “Aside from not liking Colin as a person—I never knew anyone so boring, yet so self-absorbed—I didn’t think he was good for you. He wasn’t supportive of your goals and treated you like his accessory. You can do so much better. You deserve so much better.”
EJ nodded in agreement.
“In a way, I think this is for the best.” Tessa gave a half-hearted shrug. “But it’ll be hard for me to find someone as compatible as Colin.”
Jamie shot EJ a confused look. Then she frowned and put down her fork. “Tessa, please. Explain.”
She sighed and obliged. “Well, for one, I’m a plus-size person and not proportioned like Ashley Graham.” She gestured to her round figure. “Colin was the first guy to like me because of my body, not despite it. Also, we’re both actively Christian and liberal, which can be a hard combo to find. We both love to sing. I’m really gonna miss singing with him . . . We met on the worship team.” Tessa sighed and tried to think of something else. “We’re both birders,” she added sheepishly.
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