The List of Things That Will Not Change

by Rebecca Stead

  I closed my eyes and sent Mission a message: Don’t come.

  Registering for a wedding sounds like something official you would do at city hall, but really it’s going to a nice store and making a list of presents you hope people will give you. (Then you have to tell everyone about your list so they know exactly what you want and don’t get you the wrong presents by accident.)

  Dad said he didn’t want to register for presents, but Jesse did, and I said I did, too, so Jesse decided we might as well do it while Dad was in Minnesota.

  But first we had to drag a giant bag of oyster shells to Brooklyn.

  It was a long subway ride. Jesse loves the subway. He loves it when the train comes up out of the ground, and that made me kind of love it, too, even though I had never really thought about it before. We walked to the oyster shed, Jesse dragging the bag on the ground when his arms got tired. The bag was tied at the top, but I still thought I could smell what was inside. I held my nose and walked behind him.

  “You’re just smelling the ocean,” Jesse told me.

  I made a face and pointed at the bag.

  Jesse pointed back at me. “You didn’t mind eating some of those oysters, though, did you?”

  I do love oysters. I decided to carry the bottom of the bag so that Jesse didn’t have to drag it. It was better, walking together like that. As soon as I picked it up, I felt like something was picked up inside me.

  * * *

  —

  On the train back to Manhattan, Jesse surprised me.

  “So what time should I be at your school on Thursday?”

  “Thursday?”

  “For the colonial breakfast! Isn’t it this Thursday?”

  “Yes, but—really? Don’t you have to work?” With Dad away, Jesse was at the restaurant almost every minute.

  “Don’t I deserve a little time off? And who’s going to open oysters for the hungry colonists?”

  I hugged him. His jacket smelled like oyster shells.

  * * *

  —

  At the department store, they gave us these laser pointers so that we wouldn’t even have to write down the names of the presents we wanted. All we had to do was point the laser at the price tag.

  At first, Jesse aimed his laser at everything in sight, saying “Maybe this? Or this?” And I said, “Definitely!” no matter what it was. He pointed at a set of solid-gold salt and pepper shakers, at a gigantic fork, and at a three-hundred-dollar cheese. I kept laughing and saying “Definitely!” and then Jesse would click his laser and add it to our list, and I would laugh harder. Then he pointed his laser at some guy’s shoes, and I couldn’t stop laughing. A lady walked by pushing a stroller, and Jesse pointed his laser at her purse, and then I pretended to point at the baby, and then Jesse was laughing so hard he actually sat down on the floor. If we had been two kids doing that, we would have gotten yelled at, but when you’re a grown-up, I guess they leave you alone.

  Eventually, we went to a computer station, where Jesse took off all the joke stuff, and we had a list of spatulas and bowls and picture frames that he liked and thought Dad would think was pretty normal, plus a waffle maker, an ice cream machine, and a two-hundred-dollar blender that Jesse said was probably a stretch, but what the heck.

  Jesse said we must have done miles of walking at the store, and that we deserved some cake. We went to the department-store café, where he ordered two slices of carrot cake, which he knows I love. The slices were huge, so I cut mine in half and asked for a to-go box, for Angus. They gave it to me in a shiny pink bag with ribbon handles, and I loved holding it. The whole entire afternoon felt like a vacation from regular life. I didn’t even have to remind myself not to worry.

  When Jesse dropped me off at Mom’s, I remembered to say thank you, and he gave me a big hug and said I was his favorite shopping partner. Then we were quiet for a second, and it was like a door opened and all my worries came zooming back: Angelica in the hospital, getting those tests. The invitation I had sent to Mission. Sonia in California, and how she still hadn’t emailed me and might never come back. Jesse couldn’t really be her dad from New York the same way my dad was for me. I didn’t want to say it even inside my own head, but I realized that I might know Sonia’s dad better than she did. It wasn’t fair. I don’t know what Jesse was thinking about.

  Those RSVP cards had been arriving in the mail. Almost everyone said they could come.

  “The votes are in!” Sheila said. “It looks like we’re having a party!” She had collected all the little cards in a shoebox, and we were sitting at the table at Dad’s, eating Pizzeria Pete’s and checking each name on the invitation list. There was no card from Mission. Sometimes I still wanted it to show up. Sometimes I didn’t.

  Mom was teaching a night class, so Sheila had picked me up from Dr. Thomas’s office after our bat shots that afternoon (four down, one to go). Jesse was at the restaurant, as usual, and Dad was still in Minnesota, but it was nice to see my room at Dad’s, and Rocco.

  I had forgotten to do my worrying before dinner, which is probably why things kept popping up in my brain: Angelica. Sonia. Mission. I kept telling them, “I’ll see you later,” the way Miriam taught me, but worries don’t always listen. I took a little RSVP envelope and rubbed one sharp corner on all the itchy places between my fingers. I did it under the table, so Sheila couldn’t see.

  She picked up her second slice. “Star Trek? We’re almost done with season five, I think.”

  “You never told me the end of the story,” I said. “About Mission.”

  I wasn’t sure she would. But she said, “Well, there isn’t a whole lot more to tell. Jesse married Ellie. I had to fix his suit, though, before the wedding. He’d lost weight and it didn’t fit him anymore. That’s what happens when people take away their love, Bea. It makes you smaller. Sometimes it makes you disappear.”

  “Is that why you can’t forgive Mission?” I whispered. “Because he took away his love?”

  She made her eyes hold my eyes. “Yes. That’s why. It was another ten years before Jesse was strong enough to tell Ellie and the rest of the world that he’s gay. Our parents had died by then. And as soon as Jesse opened his mouth, Mission turned away from him again. Only, this time, Jesse was prepared. He doesn’t need Mission anymore.”

  “But that was a long time ago, right? Maybe if someone invited Mission to the wedding, he would come.”

  She glanced toward the front door, as if Mission might be on the other side, or might not. “Maybe.”

  “Do you love Mission anymore?”

  “There’s something between me and Mission that can’t be broken, Bea. We were real close, all of us, growing up. We had the usual kind of adventures, I guess, but it always felt special to me.”

  “He’s still your brother,” I said.

  “He’s my twin.”

  “Twin!”

  She nodded. “For a long time, Mission felt like the other half of me. But he made me choose, just like he made Jesse choose. I can’t forgive him for that.”

  And then Sheila started crying.

  I didn’t know what to do. I stood up, and she opened her arms, and I sat in her lap, like I was the one who was crying.

  Rocco came over and whined. He rested his chin on Sheila’s knee, and we laughed. “Dumb dog,” she said. And she gave him a pizza crust.

  There’s one part of Grandpa’s tapes that was my secret for a long time. It’s Dad’s voice, when he was little, singing a song.

  You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

  You make me happy when skies are gray.

  You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.

  Please don’t take my sunshine away.

  Grandpa isn’t there. Dad must have pushed “record” again after Grandpa finished reading to him. It’s a real song—I checked on the compu
ter. He skipped some lines, but he ended up in the right place: Please don’t take my sunshine away.

  Sometimes I think about the little kid singing that song, and how he is still sort of inside Dad, all these years later.

  * * *

  —

  I doubt Dad remembers. He never listens to the tapes anymore. His song is in the middle of A Bear Called Paddington, between chapters six and seven. That’s the tape I wouldn’t let Sonia listen to when she was here. I didn’t want to share it, even with her.

  I think Jesse is Dad’s sunshine now. I’m not saying that he loves Jesse more than he loves me, or Uncle Frank, or more than he loved Mom, even. It’s because Jesse is the one who might have been taken away. Jesse is who Dad wasn’t sure he was allowed to have in the first place. And Jesse wasn’t sure he could have Dad.

  I didn’t plan to tell Sheila any of this. It just happened, after she fed Rocco her last pizza crust.

  She squeezed my hands, hard. “Bea. Do you know what this means? We have our wedding theme. Finally.”

  “We do?”

  She nodded. “Sunshine.”

  * * *

  —

  Sheila started making a to-do list right away. “Where can we buy daisies? I want to make daisy chains. And we’ll have sunflowers, sun tea…all nice and simple. Your dad won’t mind. Oh! We can decorate the seating cards, too, a little sun on each one!” She hugged me. “Bea, I really want this wedding to be perfect. You know?”

  I nodded. I did know.

  By the time Mom came to pick me up, we had two pages of ideas.

  “Get your stuff, hon,” Mom said. “I’m starving.”

  “You didn’t eat?” Sheila jumped up. “I want to make you something!”

  “Oh no,” Mom said. “I can wait.”

  But we made her sit down and rest on the couch while we heated up some tomato soup and Sheila made her a grilled cheese sandwich. (Grilled cheese is still the main thing Sheila likes to cook. She also likes spaghetti but says she can’t stand waiting for the water to boil.)

  I put out a cloth napkin and a big wineglass for Mom’s water. When I led her to the table, she said, “Well, this is nice.” And then we sat with her while she ate, and we all talked. Sheila and Mom can really talk. When it was time to go, Sheila said, “I’ll walk you home with Rocco!” And we all left together.

  * * *

  —

  I was about to get into bed at Mom’s that night when I saw that Sonia’s Skype light was green again. I called her, and she answered right away.

  “Hi!” she said, like there was an exclamation point on it.

  “Where were you? Haven’t you been getting my emails?”

  She made a face. “Sorry. I was kind of upset, about Uncle Mission. I didn’t know he never talked to Daddy. Nobody told me. It was weird. It is weird.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It is.”

  “Aunt Sheila called tonight. We had a pretty good talk. She talked to my mom, too. It was…good.”

  “Sheila’s friends with my mom, too,” I said. “That’s kind of cool if you think about it. It’s almost like our moms are friends.”

  Sonia smiled. “You never get upset, Bea. I felt so crazy when I was there, crying every night and running out of the pizza place and stuff, and you’re always just—fine. Normal. Like you know what you’re doing all the time.”

  I laughed. “I have some good stories for you. I do not know what I’m doing all the time.” I told her about Ben Larson’s speedboat party, and Carrie Greenhouse’s Halloween party, and even kicking the glass with my sandal. Every story made her laugh, and it was okay because I was telling them that way on purpose.

  Then she said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? When I was there in January, I couldn’t wait to come home. I missed my mom, but it wasn’t just that. I kept thinking…how much better I liked things before.”

  “Before what?”

  She looked right at me. “Before I knew about you and your dad. Before Daddy started talking about me spending my vacations in New York City. It was easy before. Sometimes Daddy would come to visit me, and we’d have a really great time and everything, but that was it. Then everything would go back to normal.”

  I was quiet. I was afraid of whatever she was going to say next.

  “But listen. After I got back here, everything felt different. I missed you guys. I missed Rocco. It was like part of me belonged in New York, with all of you. I felt like I was missing something, and that felt good and bad. Both, you know? You’re used to having two places. But I’m not. I never had a home with Daddy after the divorce. But now I want to.”

  My happiness made me feel huge when she said that, as big as the whole room, and I almost told her about my joy balloons, but I didn’t.

  I almost told her about number six on the list of Things That Will Not Change: We are still a family, but in a different way. But I didn’t.

  I almost told her about my bedroom windows at Mom’s, about “utta moon,” and how sometimes my life feels like a room with two windows and two moons. Then I did tell her, even though I knew she might think it was weird. Happiness makes me feel brave.

  “Two moons,” she said. “That’s cool. It’s almost like—” She stopped.

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t laugh, but it kind of sounds like a secret power. The girls who can see two moons.”

  I said, “The sisters who can see two moons.”

  She grinned and made a peace sign at me. I made one back. Then a door banged open behind her and I saw one of her little brothers streak across the room in a pair of shorts and no shirt, like he had just run in from the beach or something. It’s weird to turn on a computer at night in New York City and see California in the daytime.

  Sonia said, “I have to go. I’m supposed to be watching my brothers.”

  I said, “Did Sheila tell you her idea for the wedding theme?”

  “Sunshine?”

  “It’s great, right? But only if you like it.”

  She smiled. “I do.”

  Our colonial breakfast wasn’t at breakfast time—it started at 2:30, a half hour before dismissal. But Mr. Home said it was a “loose interpretation” of a colonial breakfast, anyway. A lot of colonists just stood up drinking beer in the dark for breakfast, he said, and we certainly weren’t going to do that.

  Jesse showed up at school right on time, waiting with his bucket of oysters in the hall with all the parents while we pushed our chairs to the walls and put out our cups of cider, our beef jerky, our bread, and our butter pots. When we were ready, Mr. Home opened the door.

  Jesse filled the doorway for a second as he walked in with his big smile and his bucket. He scanned until he found me, and waved. He wore his green sweater, and he looked really nice. We all watched the play, which was called Getting Ready for Another Day in Colonial America. After that, everyone stood around and ate beef jerky and butter-bread for a while, and then Mr. Home played some really old songs on a violin, which he called a fiddle. I didn’t even know he could do that. It was a surprise.

  After we ate, Mr. Home announced that we had a special treat. The kids all sat on the rug, and the parents stood around the edges of the room. Jesse sat on a chair in front of the whiteboard with his bucket next to him and an oyster knife in one hand.

  I had the job of introducing Jesse to the class, so when everyone was in their spots, I said, “The colonists ate oysters, too. New York Harbor used to be full of them. This is Jesse—he’s my dad’s fiancé, and he’s also an oyster expert.”

  Then I sat down.

  Carolyn Shattuck raised her hand and asked, “What’s a fiancé?” and Missy told her it’s like a secretary, so I stood up again and said, “A fiancé is the person you’re going to marry.”

  Carolyn didn’t wait to be called on again. “So y
our dad’s marrying a man,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s marrying Jesse.” I pointed at Jesse.

  Mr. Home said that people needed to wait to be called on before speaking.

  Jesse was smiling, just waiting in the chair that Mr. Home had dragged over for him. He had his oyster-opening mitt on. “Great, let’s get started,” he said, and then he started talking, telling everyone about the history of oysters and New York Harbor and how the Billion Oyster Project is trying to put a billion oyster shells into the water so that, someday, oysters might decide to live in New York City again. If we’re lucky.

  Carolyn was whispering at her neighbors the whole time Jesse talked. Mr. Home kept glaring at her, and so did I. Then Mr. Home asked Carolyn to sit on the beanbag chair to one side of the rug. When you’re sitting in the beanbag chair, you have to be silent.

  Jesse ignored all of it. He opened up an oyster, washed it in the bucket of cold water, and asked the kids who wanted to try it. No one did. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if no one wanted to try an oyster because it was an oyster, or because Jesse was marrying my dad.

  Jesse waved the oyster around. Carolyn giggled, and I hated her.

  Mr. Home said, “Carolyn.” She stopped giggling.

  Jesse ate the first oyster himself and said it was a demonstration. He opened another one and asked again who wanted to try. He held up the lemon slices. He had brought a little bowl of them.

  I ate that second oyster, with lemon juice. Mr. Home ate the third one.

  “Who else?” Jesse asked, smiling away.

  No one did anything. Carolyn had a face like she was smelling something.

  Lizette leaned over and whispered to me, “I’m allergic to shellfish, or I would. I swear, Bea.”

  Jesse just sat there looking hopeful. I could barely stand it.

  That’s when Angus stood up.