The Whole Thing Together

by Ann Brashares

  Like now, for instance, as he lay in this bed under the moon and burrowed into the sheets slept on by Sasha the very night before and tried to ignore his nose, his nerve endings, his brain, and also his entire body, so as not to think too much about her.

  Stupidly, he’d told the lie to Parker, who didn’t care that much either way. Parker continued to be a good and true friend, so the lie came annoyingly along with the friendship.

  Why had he done that? Sometimes it seemed like the person who gave in to these stupid impulses and the person who suffered over the consequences of them were two separate people. Parker didn’t particularly judge him or care. Parker had never even told him his own status, so what had been the need?

  Partly it was because he had the juvenile idea that he could casually get rid of it whenever he wanted to. Violet had already done it in ninth grade, she’d informed him. He figured he could just do it with her and not have to make a big deal of it. Since the option was at hand like that, it was practically the same as already having done it.

  He’d vowed late in the spring that he’d do it before the end of the summer, before starting his senior year. He’d just get it over with.

  But now, for other reasons, because of pushing out the boundaries of his former idea of love, he knew he probably couldn’t just get it over with Violet. He’d have to hang on to it even longer, because he had the idea it could be something important.

  Anyway, he had said this. A person had to live with his lies. That was what they cost.

  —

  Mattie didn’t want to look at herself in the mirror anymore. She first realized it yesterday, slipping through the front hall of the Wainscott house with her head turned. She’d always loved the front-hall mirror. She liked herself better in that mirror than in any of the others, but she couldn’t look right now. She snuck right in past it, a girl with a fear and a secret.

  Since the time she’d discovered she was notably pretty in fifth or sixth grade, Mattie had spent an embarrassing number of hours bobbing her face into the wide mirror that sat over the bureau in her bedroom. She had celebrated versions of herself in it from her bed: Mattie reading a book; Mattie talking on the phone, giggling pleasingly at a joke; Mattie doing her homework, a serious expression on her face. Today she skirted her reflection when she got home from work, sat restlessly at her desk, pulled curtains and turned off lights before she flopped into bed and stared at her phone.

  Tonight she was supposed to be going to the new taco place in East Hampton with Megan Vise and two of her friends from UCLA who were in town, but she couldn’t stand her face in her makeup mirror. She couldn’t pick a dress to wear. She called Megan and told her she wasn’t feeling well.

  The very qualities she usually appreciated in herself spooked her now. Her fine yellow hair and round violet-blue eyes. Quinn had the dark, otherworldly eyes; Emma was an exotic head-turner with thick black hair down to her belly button; and Sasha, the most Indian in looks, was quietly the prettiest of all of them; but her dad was a well-known sucker for a blonde. He’d been raised by a blonde. He’d married two of them for better or for worse. Her father marveled at her. It made Mattie special to him, special to herself.

  I kind of got all of it had been her smug sense for so long. She’d won the genetic jackpot. She’d inherited her dad’s smarts and grit, his merit as an outsider, his righteousness as a self-maker, his check mark in the diversity box. And all this she had in Disney Princess colors. It sickened her to frame the thought right now. Like pushing hard on a bruise.

  And his love. Most important of all, she got to have her father’s love, and the natural confidence that came with being his girl.

  Suddenly there were so many things she was scared of in that mirror: Who she’d see, who else she’d see, who she wouldn’t see. What she’d lose, what she’d realize she never had. For the first time she hated her differences and she hated her smugness even more.

  Who was Jonathan Dawes? What did he expect? Had he thought all these years that he had a daughter out there? Had he known where she was all this time? Had he thought about her and wondered what kind of girl she was?

  It scared her to think of herself in relation to him, to what he might have thought or hoped for. What kind of daughter did he require? To him she was not one of many daughters, as she always thought of herself, but one strange figure in his life. Was she somehow responsible to him?

  She thought of covering the mirror the way they had at her friend Ellie’s house when they sat shiva for her mother. But she couldn’t exactly cover all the mirrors in the house—and over the years she’d had relationships with all of them. The one in the front hall, reflecting her long-term favorite Mattie, the coming-and-going Mattie. The Mattie above the fireplace in the living room, with whom she’d only become acquainted once she was tall enough to see her. And the oval one in the den caught the Mattie who watched TV if you bent your neck a little. There was the well-lit Mattie in the sunroom mirror, who plucked her eyebrows because the light was good. There were even the framed family prints in the stairwell, where she found her face in the glass. She always saw a mobile version reflected back from the dark judicial robe of Great-Uncle Henry Harrison.

  She got up. She couldn’t stand to be alone with her thoughts in the dark. She couldn’t stand to be with her reflection in the light.

  She hated her smugness, and along those lines she hated her supposed crusade for justice. There she was, Miss Junior Detective, discovering family truth, catching her mother in a lie, and grandly preparing to extend forgiveness after the appropriate confessing and suffering. By bringing the darkness into light, she’d help them all find closure and a family rebirth, preferably in time for a really great party.

  The only person she’d caught was herself. The suffering would be hers, and the forgiveness would come from no one.

  She went downstairs to the den and turned on the TV. She hunched into the sofa and flicked through stupid shows to the even stupider ones. She settled on a terrible rip-off of a terrible show involving a tanning bed and a lot of plastic surgery. It fit her need: she could watch people other than herself with loathing and bewilderment.

  She heard a rattling in the kitchen. The suck of the refrigerator door. Soft steps through the living room and up three stairs. She hadn’t realized Quinn was home. Quinn, who’d told her to be careful, who’d all but warned her she’d wreck her own happiness if she kept prying.

  Quinn appeared in the doorway of the den, bathed in TV light. Mattie kept her head down, but Quinn read her mood in less than a second.

  “What is it?”

  Mattie shook her head. She always told Quinn things. It was impossible not to; most of the time, Quinn knew before you told her anyway. It usually felt so good to hand over problems to Quinn, who took them and carried them uncomplainingly.

  Mattie pressed her mind to think if there was any part of it she could unburden. But she couldn’t this time. It was too uncertain, too unsettled. She didn’t really have anything, just a feeling of sick suspicion and the shame of having petulantly demanded information she wasn’t ready to hear. It wasn’t just admitting to Quinn she’d been right again. It went without saying that Quinn was right. To share it would make it more real than she could tolerate yet.

  Quinn’s large, lovely eyes filled with concern.

  Mattie hunkered deeper, trying to evade those supernatural sister eyes. She kept her mouth small. If she tried to say something she would cry.

  Quinn stood thoughtfully. Mattie knew Quinn had the ballpark of the problem and a name to put to it, but she didn’t push. It was just another way she did not resemble her horrible sister Mattie. Instead she went around to the back of the sofa. She started French braiding Mattie’s hair the way she used to do.

  Mattie felt a shiver at her sister’s touch and then let her shoulders and neck settle.

  “Two braids or one?” Quinn asked.

  Big tears were already falling. Mattie wondered if Quinn knew that, und
erstanding she needed to cry without explanation. Mattie held up two fingers.

  Quinn’s competent fingers divided and wove, divided and wove. Mattie cried silently. Quinn braided and made it seem like she couldn’t tell. Neither of them said anything else, but the comfort was more than words.

  Hey, Little Ray,

  Can I tell you something weird? (Something else weird.)

  I think of myself in relation to your dad a lot. Even when I was really small I had this idea that because he was my sisters’ father, he was sort of mine, too. I don’t know the guy. I imagine he has an opinion of me, even though I know he doesn’t. Because my sisters always told stories about him, I figured he was how a father should be and I didn’t want to disappoint him. How crazy is that?

  Big Sasha

  BS,

  It amazes me, it makes me laugh, and sometimes it actually scares me how parallel our lives run. Yes, I get what you say about my dad. Yes, I’ve had all those same thoughts, exact thoughts, about your mother. And to take it a step worse, I’ve wished Lila were my mom, thrown my own mother under the bus (figuratively) in my desire to be the same as our sisters—to be one of them and not half-a-one. I think of Lila as the “real” mom, the serious, strong-willed one who could stand up to my dad. I think of my own mom as some kind of understudy imposter. How horrible is that? (I can’t believe I just wrote that.)

  I should probably mention that though Robert is a character and a half, he’s no picnic.

  LR

  LR,

  Parallel is right, sadly. Lines that go along forever together and never meet.

  On the understudy imposter front, Adam lost his teaching job at the end of last semester and doesn’t own either of the houses we live in. He left two kids in California to marry my mom and he barely knows them anymore. When I was a little kid I spent too much time thinking about those kids, technically my half brother and sister, a whole country away: Is a dad allowed to just do that? How strong are these bonds, anyway?

  I love my dad. I respect him in a lot of ways, but I don’t want to be like him.

  BS

  “Can you just stay for a minute?”

  Mattie’s mother had the same furtive look she’d been wearing for the last few weeks as she fled the Wainscott kitchen with her cup of tea seconds behind Adam.

  “Please?” Mattie stood up quickly from the table. She didn’t try to keep her voice level.

  Her mom stopped. She heard the need, at least. She hadn’t given up her mom job altogether. “Is everything okay?”

  “Well.” Mattie considered. She had her mother, a little of her, for a few seconds, at least. She didn’t want to scare her into the living room. “Sort of.” It shouldn’t have surprised her much that she started to cry.

  Her mom cast a look after Adam, who was most of the way to the den. She ventured toward Mattie. “Honey, what?”

  Mattie perched on the table, half sitting. Hot rays of late-morning sun pitched through the sliding-glass doors of the kitchen. It revealed the soft skin starting to bag on her mother’s neck, the faint brown spots along her cheekbone.

  Mattie took a breath and it started coming out. She couldn’t turn back anymore. She went forward. “I don’t even know who I am right now.”

  Her mother drew closer, put her hand on Mattie’s hand. Lila was skittish, still standing, her legs poised to flee, but at least she was still there.

  “I know about Jonathan Dawes, even though you don’t want me to.”

  Fear, self-protection, mother love battled on her mother’s strained face. Under her pajama top Mattie felt drops of sweat rolling from under her arms down her ribs.

  “He didn’t tell me, because he said it was your decision to tell me, but I know something happened with you and him.” She was crying more now and her mother was hugging her more now, so she couldn’t read her face anymore. And that was a relief. She’d rather talk wetly into her neck for the next thing she needed to say.

  “I know I’m part of this. I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t help it. I can’t help thinking that I look a lot more like him…than I look like Dad.”

  Her mother was holding her almost too tight. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  Mattie pulled forcefully away. “I don’t want you to avoid me or lie to me.” She wiped her eyes and nose with the sleeve of her pajamas. “I just want you to tell me the truth right now. That’s all.”

  The fight on her mother’s face raged on. It didn’t make her pretty. She looked punished, shamed, defiant, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Is Dad my dad?”

  Her mother was crying now too. “Your dad is your dad.” She was still holding back.

  Mattie would have liked to leave it at this, but she couldn’t. She had her mother to herself in a quiet room finally; she had nineteen years of secrets. She wouldn’t just let her out of it. “If I took a DNA test, what would it show?”

  Her mother looked stung. “Mattie, why would you want to do that?”

  “I wouldn’t want to do that. At all. I just want you to tell me the truth.”

  Her mom was crying openly now. “Try not to judge too harshly, Mattie. When we’re unhappy we do stupid things. We make bad choices. We look for reassurance in destructive ways. We hurt people we love.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “I was terribly unhappy then. So was your father. I was confused. Maybe you’ll understand better when you’re older, when you’re a wife and mother.”

  Mattie felt sympathy and judgment growing together. They didn’t cancel each other out. “I hope I don’t.”

  Her mother took it. The defiance was mostly gone. She blew her nose on a piece of paper towel and offered Mattie the other half. She swatted at tiny fruit flies floating around a bunch of brown bananas.

  “The only thing you need to know is that your father adores you and he has since the moment you were born. There’s never been any question that you are his daughter.”

  And here came the hardest question of all, and Mattie hadn’t even known she had it: “But does he know?”

  Big S,

  The thing I didn’t say before, which is also true, is that I dismiss my mother and I also feel protective of her. She’s already got three stepdaughters, and two of them are eager to write her off. I’m the one who has to stand up for her. I try to. She is a sincerely generous person. My worst disloyalty is probably in my thoughts.

  LR

  LR,

  This reminds me of something I haven’t been able to tell anyone. I went to surprise my dad to listen to his lecture last semester at Brooklyn Law, where he teaches. (Used to teach.) It was a hall big enough for a couple hundred students…and there were two. He went on lecturing like every seat was full. I stayed because it seemed even worse to leave, but I felt bad for him. And then there was the awkwardness on the way home, with each of us trying to brush it off, not feel embarrassed for the sake of the other. When I need to go easier on my dad, I think of that. I’m not sure it helps.

  I think I was kind of an afterthought in my family, most likely a mistake. I’m the one final complication that makes people give up trying to keep track. By the time they got around to having me, Lila already had three children and Adam had already left two. Lila had just launched her new career. Adam was forty-five years old. I’m the “yeah, whatever” kid.

  Grandma Hardy is convinced I am no relation of hers. “You are a nice boy. Who is your mother?” I’ve met my half sister Esther fewer than five times. Her husband thinks my name is Roy. When Mattie went to college my parents rented out the ground floor of our house, and I overheard my mom telling the neighbors it was because they were finally “empty-nesters.”

  I’m not complaining. It’s a relief not to deal with all the scrutiny and pressure a lot of my friends get. It’s just the feeling of disbanding, unwinding, downsizing that gets me down sometimes.

  Lila occasionally tries to psychoanalyze me. It’s pure torture. She tells me my attach
ment to summers at the beach house is my inability to let go of the past. But with her and my dad getting rid of everything else, I think it’s more my inability to let go of the present and future.

  Sorry for the soul-dump. Not sure what’s with me today.

  BS

  BS,

  It’s the opposite with me. I am Evie’s first and only kid, and she doesn’t have much else to do, so they make a big deal about how we are a little family. Special vacations, special dinners. They both take an “active interest” in my education, which is a bummer in every way. When Mattie went to college, my parents got a new, bigger place.

  I know it’s lucky to have your parents care about you. I try to be grateful. But if I’m being totally honest, I’ll admit that every time our sisters packed up to go home to Brooklyn, I wanted nothing more than to go with them. When they were gone, I practically stopped existing. I was like C-3PO: “I’ll be shutting down now.”

  Please dump your soul with me anytime. It is safe here. And as you see, I will dump mine right back.

  LR

  —

  “I don’t want to do this party anymore.” Mattie was on her lunch break, eating a sandwich in the shade of the barn while Dana minded the store.

  Quinn paused at the door, put down the bags of compost she was carrying. She could feel Mattie’s fragility. Mattie was not just back to the old bomb throwing.

  “Why?” Quinn sat down cross-legged on the grass opposite her.

  “Our parents are impossible.”

  “We knew that.”

  “Mom basically told George and Esther not to bother coming all the way across the country for it. She said to wait for the wedding, if it gets that far. If it gets that far. She said that.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Dad is torn between his desires to impress the Hurns and punish Lila. Guess which is winning out?”

  “Punishing Lila.”