Page 54 of Every Almost

"Everything," Katie whispered.

Charlie held her sister and didn't say anything, because she didn't need to.

Ed and Diane's reaction arrived later that evening, over a dinner where Charlie placed the letter on the table between the salt and pepper shakers.

Ed picked it up, read it, and set it down. "That's a long way away."

"It's a full scholarship," Charlie said.

"California," Diane said, as though the word itself were a concern. "All the way out there. Imagine how much money that will cost for a plane ticket!" Diane laughed at the absurdity of spending that kind of money, and Ed joined gruffly. Charlie and Katie didn't.

Neither Ed nor Diane said they were proud. The absence of that sentence was the loudest in the room. Katie looked at Charlie, then at their parents, and her small face did the thing ithad been doing when their parents didn't see Charlie for who she was. It tightened in a way nobody else noticed.

After dinner, Charlie took the letter back down the hall, Katie beside her the whole way. Before they broke apart to go to their respective bedrooms, Katie reached out and grabbed Charlie's arm, giving it a squeeze.

"I'm proud of you, Charlie."

Charlie smiled at her sister. She hugged Katie tightly, kissed the top of her head, and held her at arm's length.

"You're my biggest cheerleader, Kit-Kat. I will always be grateful for you." Katie smiled at Charlie like she'd just won the lottery. Charlie pulled her back into a hug. "I love you."

Katie wrapped her arms tighter around Charlie. "I love you, too."

"Let's go tell Mr. and Mrs. Beckman tomorrow. Together." Katie nodded against Charlie's chest.

"They'll be so excited!" Katie whispered.

Once they parted, Charlie walked into her room and closed the door behind her. She sat down at her desk, picked up the phone in her room with the private line, and called the Caltech admissions office to accept her place.

The nightbefore Charlie left for Caltech, Helen invited the whole Wickett family to dinner. In the end, Ed and Diane didn't make it. Ed was stuck at work and Diane was arranging the setup for the church fundraiser the next day. They thanked Helen for the invite and apologized.

But it was expected. Ed and Diane had never made it to dinner when Helen and Frank invited them. They always had other places to be.

Helen made Charlie's favorite, Friday-night chicken piccata, paired with green beans from her very own backyard garden. There was also pie cooling on the counter because Helen believed no goodbye should happen without pie.

"You're late!" Frank had called when the girls walked through the door, even though they were five minutes early. Charlie rolled her eyes at the repeated lecture she knew was coming.

"We're on time, Mr. Beckman."

"Early is on time and on time islate," Frank said, pointing his finger at her. "You remember that when you get to California and those professors start expecting you in their labs at the crack of dawn." Charlie grinned and stole a green bean from the serving dish before Helen could swat her hand away.

Charlie did notice that Frank was quieter than usual, though. She noticed it by the change in his rhythm, how he sat in his chair and ate slowly, how he laughed at Katie's jokes and smiled at Helen's stories with what seemed like subdued reactions. There were moments when he'd pause mid-sentence to clear his throat, or set down his fork and press his hand against the table as though steadying himself. At one point, he stood to refill his coffee and had to grip the back of the chair on the way up. Helen's hand went to his back, just for a moment, the kind of touch that looked like habit but felt like vigilance.

Charlie saw all of it. She didn't know what to do with any of it yet, but she would always remember.

After dinner, Frank walked Charlie out to the garage. Just the two of them. He stood by the Cutlass and looked at the engine compartment, and Charlie thought he was going to say something about the car, but he didn't.

"You know," he said, "when I shipped out in forty-two, I didn't know what I was heading into. None of us did. But I knew I was good with my hands and I knew I belonged near engines."He looked at her. "You belong near engines, Charlie. Bigger ones than mine. Don't let anyone tell you different."

Charlie's throat tightened. She didn't trust her voice, so she just nodded.

Frank reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something small. A metal pin, tarnished with age, shaped like a pair of wings with a propeller at the center. An Aviation Machinist's Mate rating badge. His rating badge, from the Enterprise.

"Mr. Beckman..." Charlie said.

"Don't you 'Mr. Beckman' me, Charlie. I want to give this to you. There's a difference between me giving it and you taking it." He pressed it into her palm and closed her fingers around it.

Charlie looked down at the pin in her hand. Over forty years of history in a piece of metal smaller than a quarter.