Welcome to our family, Opheliais scrawled across the top.
It may be a messy kid’s drawing, but I know as soon as I read it that it’ll feel like a swift punch of emotion straight to the gutfor Ophelia. I place my palm on her lower back, just so she knows I’m here.
She stares at the poster, looking lost for words. “I … uhh …”
Josie’s greasy little finger lands on the orange chaos that juts out from one stick figure’s head. “That’s you.”
Ophelia’s pale brown lashes blink rapidly, lips pressed together in a tight line. “It’s …”
“You don’t like it?”
I scrunch my hand through Josie’s blond waves. “Give her a second, J. She’s got to take it in.”
“It’s …” Ophelia starts and stops again, but I know. It’s the reason she’s hung on all these years. “I love it, Josie. Please may I keep it?”
“Yeah!” Josie exclaims, hugging Ophelia and charging out of the kitchen like she hasn’t just thrown a stick of dynamite at the walls Ophelia has spent so many years building around her heart.
The silence is heavy. The mood is heavy. Her breath is heavy, laden with unshed tears. She clutches the poster so hard, like someone might snatch it from her at any moment. For a girl so full of snarky remarks, her next sentence comes out so quiet. So unsure. “Can I spend Christmas with you guys this year?”
I fold her into my arms, feeling the shudder of a sob ripple up her spine. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, Twist.”
“Thisyear, though? Like … in eight months?” she reiterates into my chest, like she can’t believe I’ve said yes, that she’s made it through the loneliness and out the other side.
Something about the moment feels like daybreak. The first ray of sun after a long, dark night. The first shard of hope, illuminating two people who were on the edge of giving up.
“Please?” she adds, misinterpreting my silence for indecision. Something in my chest splinters. It makes me want to crawl beneath her skin and stitch all the little cracks up one by one.
I bury my face in her hair, inhaling that cinnamon coffee scent of hers. “This year and every year until midnight.”
A hundred years from now.
MY MOM IShome, propped up on a giant pile of pillows and pushing the small portion of food on her plate around without taking a bite.
I’ve left Ophelia in the comfortable surroundings of the living room, playing online Scrabble with some terrible TV show on in the background. NotMasterChef. Cooking has become a sore subject since Steakgate.
I didn’t know that Scrabble was the sort of game you could get all worked up over, but she manages. Every single night. IfWordBuster89could hear what she’s saying about them, they’d probably never look in the mirror again.
She’s a funny one, my Ophelia.
Putting a tomato onto a fork, Mom smiles at the sound of Mia and Evie screeching about something in the garden. I wish she’d eat. I don’t think she could get much thinner.
I’m about to coax her into eating a bite when she nods over to the framed sketch on her bedside table. I did it years ago, messily scribbled on the back of a napkin while we sat in a café in Paris. “You never talk about architecture anymore.”
I shrug. It’s been a long while since I’ve had time to think about my future. “It was a pipe dream.”
“Says who?”
“Me. I’ve got to keep my head in Green. I don’t know anything about architecture.”
“That’s the point, Alex. Your father made you forget it, but you’re not supposed to know everything. You show up to university to learn. You pick a topic that inspires you, andthenyou study it.”
Well, when she says it like that, it sounds obvious. A simple truth beaten out of me by my father. He didn’t take it well, that first time I told him I didn’t want Green.
From the minute you were born I knew you’d let me down.
“You always said you’d run an architecture firm. I know you haven’t ticked building a public library off your bucket list, unless you’re really good at keeping secrets.”
I fiddle with the ring on my pinky, wishing she wouldn’t inflate my hopes like this. “Maybe once the girls are in college.”
