Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

by Celeste Ng

  Each test score had been lower than the last, reading like a strange weather forecast: ninety in September, mid-eighties in October, low seventies in November, sixties before Christmas. The exam before this one, she’d managed a sixty-two—technically passing, but hardly passable. After class, she’d shredded it into penny-sized scraps and fed it down the third-floor toilet before coming home. Now there was the fifty-five, which, like a bright light, made her squint, even though Mr. Kelly hadn’t written the F at the top of the page. She’d stashed it in her locker for two weeks under a stack of textbooks, as if the combined weight of algebra and history and geography might snuff it out. Mr. Kelly had been asking her about it, hinting that he could call her parents himself, if necessary, and finally Lydia promised to bring it back after Christmas break with her mother’s signature.

  All her life she had heard her mother’s heart drumming one beat: doctor, doctor, doctor. She wanted this so much, Lydia knew, that she no longer needed to say it. It was always there. Lydia could not imagine another future, another life. It was like trying to imagine a world where the sun went around the moon, or where there was no such thing as air. For a moment she considered forging her mother’s signature, but her handwriting was too round, too perfectly bulbous, like a little girl’s script. It would fool no one.

  And last week, something even more terrifying had happened. Now, from under her mattress, Lydia extracted a small white envelope. Part of her hoped that, somehow, it would have changed; that over the past eight days the words would have eroded so she could blow them away like soot, leaving nothing but a harmless blank page. But when she blew, just one quick puff, the paper quivered. The letters clung. Dear Mr. Lee: We thank you for your participation in our new early admission process and are very pleased to welcome you to the Harvard Class of 1981.

  For the past few weeks, Nath had checked the mail every afternoon, even before he said hello to their mother, sometimes before he took off his shoes. Lydia could feel him aching to escape so badly that everything else was falling away. Last week, at breakfast, Marilyn had leaned Lydia’s marked-up math homework against the box of Wheaties. “I checked it last night after you went to bed,” she said. “There’s a mistake in number twenty-three, sweetheart.” Five years, a year, even six months earlier, Lydia would have found sympathy in her brother’s eyes. I know. I know. Confirmation and consolation in a single blink. This time Nath, immersed in a library book, did not notice Lydia’s clenched fingers, the sudden red that rimmed her eyes. Dreaming of his future, he no longer heard all the things she did not say.

  He had been the only one listening for so long. Since their mother’s disappearance and return, Lydia had been friendless. Every recess that first fall, she had stood to the side, staring at the First Federal clock in the distance. Each time a minute ticked by, she squeezed her eyes shut and pictured what her mother might be doing—scrubbing the counter, filling the kettle, peeling an orange—as if the weight of all those details could keep her mother there. Later she would wonder if this had made her miss her chance, or if she had ever had a chance at all. One day she had opened her eyes and found Stacey Sherwin standing before her: Stacey Sherwin of the waist-long golden hair, surrounded by a gaggle of girls. In Middlewood’s kindergarten class, Stacey Sherwin was the kingmaker, already adept at wielding her power. A few days earlier, she had announced, “Jeannine Collins stinks like garbage water,” and Jeannine Collins had peeled away from the group, ripping her glasses from her tear-smudged face, while the other girls in Stacey’s coterie tittered. Lydia, from a safe distance, had watched this unfold with awe. Only once, on the first day of kindergarten, had Stacey spoken to her directly: “Do Chinese people celebrate Thanksgiving?” And: “Do Chinese people have belly buttons?”

  “We’re all going over to my house after school,” Stacey said now. Her eyes flicked briefly to Lydia’s, then slid away. “You could come, too.”

  Suspicion flared in Lydia. Could she really have been chosen by Stacey Sherwin? Stacey kept looking at the ground and wound a ribbon of hair round her finger and Lydia stared, as if she might be able to see right into Stacey’s mind. Shy or sly? She couldn’t tell. And she thought, then, of her mother, her face peering through the kitchen window, waiting for her to arrive.

  “I can’t,” she said at last. “My mom said I have to come straight home.”

  Stacey shrugged and walked away, the other girls trailing behind her. In their wake came a swell of sudden laughter, and Lydia could not tell if she had been left out of the joke or if she had been the joke herself.

  Would they have been kind to her or mocked her? She would never know. She would say no to birthday parties, to roller-skating, to swimming at the rec center, to everything. Each afternoon she rushed home, desperate to see her mother’s face, to make her mother smile. By the second grade, the other girls stopped asking. She told herself she didn’t care: her mother was still there. That was all that mattered. In the years to come, Lydia would watch Stacey Sherwin—her golden hair braided, then ironed flat, then feathered—waving to her friends, pulling them toward her, the way a rhinestone caught and held the light. She would see Jenn Pittman slip a note to Pam Saunders and see Pam Saunders unfold it beneath her desk and snicker; she would watch Shelley Brierley share out a pack of Doublemint and breathe in the sugar-spearmint scent as the foil-wrapped sticks passed her by.

  Only Nath had made it bearable all that time. Every day, since kindergarten, he saved her a seat—in the cafeteria, a chair across the table from him; on the bus, his books placed beside him on the green vinyl seat. If she arrived first, she saved a seat for him. Because of Nath, she never had to ride home alone while everyone else chatted sociably in pairs; she never needed to gulp out, “Can I sit here?” and risk being turned away. They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, Someone is coming. I am not alone.

  Now Nath was leaving. More letters were on their way. In a few days we will send a packet of information and forms should you choose to accept your place. Still, for a moment, Lydia allowed herself to fantasize: slipping the next letter out of the mail pile, and the next, and the next, tucking them between mattress and box spring where Nath couldn’t find them, so that he would have no choice but to stay.

  Downstairs, Nath riffled through the pile of mail: a grocery circular, an electric bill. No letter. That fall, when the guidance counselor had asked Nath about his career plans, he had whispered, as if telling her a dirty secret. “Space,” he’d said. “Outer space.” Mrs. Hendrich had clicked her pen twice, in-out, and he thought she was going to laugh. It had been nearly five years since the last trip to the moon, and the nation, having bested the Soviets, had turned its attention elsewhere. Instead Mrs. Hendrich told him there were two routes: become a pilot or become a scientist. She flipped a folder open to his printed-out transcript. B-minus in phys ed; A-plus in trigonometry, calculus, biology, physics. Though Nath dreamed of MIT, or Carnegie Mellon, or Caltech—he’d even written for pamphlets—he knew there was only one place his father would approve: Harvard. To James, anything else was a failing. Once he got to college, Nath told himself, he would take advanced physics, material science, aerodynamics. College would be a jumping-off point for a million places he had never been, a stop-off at the moon before shooting into space. He would leave everything and everyone behind—and though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, everyone meant Lydia, too.

  Lydia was fifteen now, taller, and at school, when she tied her hair up and put on lipstick, she looked grown up. At home, she looked like the same startled five-year-old who had clung to his hand as they crawled back ashore. When she stood near, the little-girl scent of her perfume—even its name childish, Baby Soft—wafted from her skin. Ever since that summer, he had felt something still binding their ankles and tugging him off balance, fettering her weight to his. For ten years, that something had not loosened, and now it had begun to c
hafe. All those years, as the only other person who understood their parents, he had absorbed her miseries, offering silent sympathy or a squeeze on the shoulder or a wry smile. He would say, Mom’s always bragging about you to Dr. Wolff. When I got that A-plus in chem, she didn’t even notice. Or, Remember when I didn’t go to the ninth grade formal? Dad said, “Well, I guess if you can’t get a date . . .” He had buoyed her up with how too much love was better than too little. All that time, Nath let himself think only: When I get to college— He never completed the sentence, but in his imagined future, he floated away, untethered.

  It was almost Christmas now, and still no letter from Harvard. Nath went into the living room without turning on the lamp, letting the colored lights on the tree guide his way. Each blackened windowpane reflected back a tiny Christmas tree. He would have to type new essays and wait for a second or third or fourth choice, or maybe he’d have to stay home forever. His father’s voice carried from the kitchen: “I think she’ll really like it. As soon as I saw it, I thought of her.” No need for an antecedent—in their family, she was always Lydia. As the Christmas lights blinked on and off, the living room appeared, dimly, then disappeared again. Nath closed his eyes when the lights came on, opened them as they went off, so that he saw only uninterrupted darkness. Then the doorbell rang.

  It was Jack—not yet suspicious in Nath’s eyes, only long distrusted and disliked. Though it was below freezing, he wore just a hooded sweatshirt, half-zipped over a T-shirt Nath couldn’t quite read. The hems of his jeans were frayed and damp from the snow. He pulled his hand from his sweatshirt pocket and held it out. For a moment, Nath wondered if he was expected to shake it. Then he saw the envelope pinched between Jack’s fingers.

  “This came to our house,” Jack said. “Just got home and saw it.” He jabbed his thumb at the red crest in the corner. “I guess you’ll be going to Harvard, then.”

  The envelope was thick and heavy, as if puffed with good news. “We’ll see,” Nath said. “It might be a rejection, right?”

  Jack didn’t smile. “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Whatever.” Without saying good-bye, he turned home, crushing a trail of footprints across the Lees’ snowy yard.

  Nath shut the door and flipped on the living room light, weighing the envelope in both hands. All of a sudden the room felt unbearably hot. The flap came up in a ragged tear and he yanked out the letter, crumpling its edge. Dear Mr. Lee: Let us once again congratulate you on your early admission to the Class of 1981. His joints went loose with relief.

  “Who was it?” Hannah, who had been listening from the hallway, peeked around the doorframe.

  “A letter”—Nath swallowed—“from Harvard.” Even the name tingled on his tongue. He tried to read the rest, but the text wouldn’t focus. Congratulate. Once again. The mailman must have lost the first one, he thought, but it didn’t matter. Your admission. He gave up and grinned at Hannah, who tiptoed in and leaned against the couch. “I got in.”

  “To Harvard?” James said, coming in from the kitchen.

  Nath nodded.

  “The letter got delivered to the Wolffs,” he said, holding it out. But James barely glanced at it. He was looking at Nath, and for once he was not frowning, and Nath realized he had grown as tall as his father, that they could look at each other eye to eye.

  “Not bad,” James said. He smiled, as if half-embarrassed, and put his hand on Nath’s shoulder, and Nath felt it—heavy and warm—through his shirt. “Marilyn. Guess what?”

  His mother’s heels clattered in from the kitchen. “Nath,” she said, kissing him hard, on the cheek. “Nath, really?” She plucked the letter from his grip. “My god, Class of 1981,” she said, “doesn’t that make you feel old, James?” Nath wasn’t listening. He thought: It’s happening. I did it, I made it, I’m going.

  At the top of the stairs, Lydia watched her father’s hand tighten on Nath’s shoulder. She could not remember the last time he had smiled at Nath like that. Her mother held the letter to the light, as if it were a precious document. Hannah, elbows hooked over the arm of the sofa, swung her feet in glee. Her brother himself stood silent, awed and grateful, 1981 glistening in his eyes like a beautiful far-off star, and something wobbled inside Lydia and tumbled into her chest with a clang. As if they heard it, everyone looked up toward her, and just as Nath opened his mouth to shout out the good news, Lydia called, “Mom, I’m failing physics. I’m supposed to let you know.”

  • • •

  That night, while Nath brushed his teeth, the bathroom door creaked open and Lydia appeared, leaning against the doorjamb. Her face was pale, almost gray, and for a moment he felt sorry for her. Over dinner, their mother had moved from frantic questions—how could she let this happen, didn’t she realize—to blunt statements: “Imagine yourself older and unable to find a job. Just imagine it.” Lydia hadn’t argued, and faced with her daughter’s silence, Marilyn had found herself repeating that dire warning again and again. “Do you think you’ll just find a man and get married? Is that all you plan for your life?” It had been all she could do to keep from crying right there at the table. After half an hour, James said, “Marilyn—” but she had glared so fiercely that he subsided, prodding shreds of pot roast in the separating onion-soup gravy. Everyone had forgotten about Harvard, about Nath’s letter, about Nath himself.

  After dinner, Lydia had found Nath in the living room. The letter from Harvard lay on the coffee table, and she touched the seal where it said VERITAS.

  “Congratulations,” she said softly. “I knew you’d get in.” Nath had been too angry to speak to her and fixed his eyes on the television screen, where Donny and Marie were singing in perfect harmony, and before the song was over Lydia had run upstairs to her room and slammed the door. Now there she stood in the doorway, ashen and barefoot on the bathroom tiles.

  He knew what Lydia wanted now: for him to offer reassurance, a humiliation, a moment he’d rather forget. Something to make her feel better. Mom will get over it. It will be okay. Remember when . . . ? But he didn’t want to remember all the times his father had doted on Lydia but stared at him with disappointment flaring in his eyes, all the times their mother had praised Lydia but looked over and past and through him, as if he were made of air. He wanted to savor the long-awaited letter, the promise of getting away at last, a new world waiting as white and clean as chalk.

  He spat fiercely into the sink without looking at her, swishing the last bit of froth down the drain with his fingers.

  “Nath,” Lydia whispered as he turned to go, and he knew by the tremble in her voice that she’d been crying, that she was about to begin again.

  “Goodnight,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  • • •

  The next morning, Marilyn thumbtacked the failed test to the kitchen wall across from Lydia’s seat. For the next three days, from breakfast until dinner, she plopped the physics book in front of her daughter and sat down beside her. All Lydia needed, she thought, was a little encouragement. Momentum and inertia, kinetic and potential—these things still lingered in the corners of her own mind. She read aloud over Lydia’s shoulder: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. She worked through the failed test with Lydia again and again until Lydia could solve every problem correctly.

  What Lydia did not tell her mother was that, by the third time through, she had simply memorized the right answers. All day, while she huddled over her physics book at the table, she waited for her father to intercede: That’s enough, Marilyn. It’s Christmas break, for God’s sake. But he said nothing. Lydia had refused to speak to Nath since that night—as she thought of it—and she suspected, correctly, that he was angry at her as well; he avoided the kitchen entirely, except for meals. Even Hannah would have been some comfort—a small and silent buffer—but as usual, she was nowhere to be seen. In actuality, Hannah had planted herself under the end table in the foyer, just out of sight of the kitchen, listening to the scratch of Lydia’s pencil
. She hugged her knees and sent soft and patient thoughts, but her sister did not hear them. By Christmas morning, Lydia was furious at them all, and even the discovery that Marilyn had at last unpinned the test from the wall failed to cheer her up.

  Sitting down around the Christmas tree felt sullied now, too. James lifted one ribboned package after another from the pile, handing each around, but Lydia dreaded the gift from her mother. Usually her mother gave her books—books that, although neither of them fully realized it, her mother secretly wanted herself, and which, after Christmas, Marilyn would sometimes borrow from Lydia’s shelf. To Lydia, they were always too hard no matter what age she was, less presents than unsubtle hints. Last year, it was The Color Atlas of Human Anatomy, so large it wouldn’t fit on the shelf upright; the year before, she had received a thick volume called Famous Women of Science. The famous women had bored her. Their stories were all the same: told they couldn’t; decided to anyway. Because they really wanted to, she wondered, or because they were told not to? And the anatomy had made her queasy—men and women with their skin peeled off, then their muscles stripped away, until they were nothing but skeletons laid bare. She’d flipped through some of the color plates and slammed the book and squirmed in her seat, as if she could shake off the feeling like a dog shook rain off its fur.