She didn’t know when this wall had erected itself between herself and Demi. Certainly, it had begun construction well before Nils left, as Demi often dealt with conflict by turning cold, and Cora had grown up only knowing how to react in turn. She knew that Demi deserved some compassion and at least an apology for fucking up the Kaiser job.
She stood there a moment, then turned away.
Before she entered Olive’s room, she stopped in front of the small hallway mirror, looking at her face and searching for beauty in it as girls so often do. It seemed like the weight she’d gained since last year had made her nose rounder. Looking at the ever-darkening circles under her eyes, she had the thought, I need new concealer, followed by, I wish I could afford new concealer.
Cora had a routine of singing Olive to sleep, usually when Demi was too drunk to do so herself, which was increasingly often. She did it now more out of enjoyment, nostalgia perhaps, than obligation. Olive was getting too old to expect this anymore.
She grabbed her guitar from her room, parked on the floor next to Olive’s bed, and asked, “Requests?”
“‘Sk8er Boi,’” said Olive without pause, settling in and pulling the blanket up to her chest.
Cora threw her head back and sighed in resignation. Not a great choice for acoustic guitar. “Okay, but I’m choosing the next one.” Avril Lavigne was not Cora’s choice for Artist of the Year, but Olive had weeks ago decided her number-one object of hero worship was now Avril. More than once since school started, they’d had to dissuade her from wearing neckties to school. Usually, singing at night brightened her up, but tonight, even “Sk8er Boi” didn’t inspire joy.
“Okay, I did it,” said Cora after she finished. “My turn. How about Ani?”
“Ani is boring,” declared Olive, looking down at her bedspread.
“That is mean, and one day you will understand that you are wrong,” said Cora. “Compromise. ‘Hey Jude’?”
“What’s wrong with Mom?”
Cora deflated and put the guitar down. “Yeah, she probably just wanted to watch Jay Leno or something.”
“She was mad earlier,” said Olive.
“I messed up at my job,” said Cora, leaning back into the weak wood frame of the bed. “I messed up, and I made her mad.”
“Why?”
“I was scared,” she said. “I left work without asking permission. I made a mistake.”
“Scared of the meteor?”
“Yeah,” she lied.
“Was that man looking for Daddy?” asked Olive. Her voice was thin, weak, like she knew Cora didn’t want her to ask that question.
“Don’t call him that,” said Cora, stunned. This was the first time Olive had ever called Nils that. Olive had never known Nils. She was barely a toddler when he left. “Where did you get that?”
Olive shrugged, her eyes still downcast. “That’s what Felix calls him.”
“That’s not what I call him.” Cora smiled weakly. “Go to sleep, butternut,” she said, kissing her sister on the forehead. Olive hugged her back, but it seemed to Cora a hug of obligation.
Cora went into her own room, which was smaller than those of her siblings, the scraps of square footage relegated to her after a two-year absence. Her room was just big enough for a twin bed, a dresser, a nightstand, and several boxes stacked by the closet. She still hadn’t unpacked the boxes she’d brought back from the dorms at Irvine.
She sat on her bed, knees to her chest, quietly resenting the fact that Luciana and Demi had drained what was left of the box wine, and dug out a letter from under her mattress. Almost on instinct, she looked out the window, as if there might be some government spy peeking in. She opened it to read it again. She’d read it dozens of times by now.
The first and only letter she had gotten from Nils in four years.
Dear Cora,
I hope this reaches you well. I’ve thought at great length how to begin this letter and what to say in it, but after going through several drafts, I’ve decided the simplest approach is best. I think often about the terms we parted on, how bad it was for both of us, and I regret it.
Abuelita says you’ve gone to UCI and are studying linguistics. I don’t know much about the Language Science department at UCI, but a quick Google search tells me they’re one of the best. What does one do with a degree in linguistics these days? Now is a good time to be in school—the entire world economy is about to crash.
The letter was postmarked almost two months ago, well after she’d left UCI. He didn’t even know she’d been put on academic probation. He didn’t even know she’d lost her scholarship and was back at home, living out of unpacked boxes and ruining her mother’s career as much as she was her own. Either Abuelita hadn’t cared to inform him, or he hadn’t cared to ask.
By the time you get this, I may have already released what may be the most important leak we ever received. We’ve been working on this one for months, waiting for the perfect time, or else people may not give it its due attention, and it will get buried.
She hadn’t known it when she’d first gotten this letter back in July, but he must have been referring to the Fremda Memo. Well, he’d gotten his wish. The perfect opportunity had come in the form of the Ampersand Event, and Nils had seized it brilliantly.
I write this with the hope that we might reestablish communication, perhaps even begin to rebuild a relationship. You were only sixteen the last time we spoke, and I recognize now that I should have met you where you were, not where I wanted you to be.
I hope you respond to me someday. I don’t expect you to agree with what I’ve done. I know I’ve hurt you all. I don’t ask for your forgiveness, not yet, but just understand why I do what I do.
I want a future for us, but I want it on your terms. Perhaps one day, if I earn your forgiveness, I may even earn your acceptance. I don’t want you to simply endure what I do. I want you to understand it, because I think if you understand me, eventually, you might join me.
Dad
A part of her wanted to burn it. She’d already lied to a CIA agent about not having heard anything from Nils in four years. Before, the letter had been a source of cognitive dissonance, but now it could seriously get her in trouble.
There was a part of her, a part she hated to even acknowledge, that felt some temptation. The Nils that left them had done so in a radioactive hailstorm of bad blood. It had seemed at the time that he was in the wrong, that he was a career failure, and that Cora was the bright one with a promising future. Now, against all odds, he had succeeded at everything he had tried to do, and Cora was the failure with no prospects. There was nothing for her here anymore, so hitching her cart to that wagon wouldn’t be the most irrational thing.
Nothing for her here, except Olive.
That thought snapped her back to reality—of all of them, Olive was the one he had abandoned most callously and the one for whom Cora had picked up the most slack, having to step in as a surrogate parent when she should have been preparing to leave the nest. The temptation to respond was fleeting and, ultimately, easy not to give into.
But at the same time, she wanted Nils to know that the message had been received and rejected. His non-apology was bad enough, but coupled with him taking the first opportunity to talk about himself was just arrogant. It was a risk, as there was a chance some government goon might find out she’d lied about the letter, but one she was willing to take. The letter had a return address in Germany, and there it would go.