Jonah barely posts in our group chat except to complain. He’s angrier than Milly and I about getting sent to Gull Cove Island for the summer. Now, as Thomas pulls out of the Recreation Center parking lot, I distract myself by scrolling through yesterday’s conversation.
Jonah: This is bullshit. I should be at camp this summer.
Milly: What, are you a counselor?
Jonah: Not that kind of camp. It’s a science camp. Very competitive. Nearly impossible to get into and now I’m supposed to miss it?
Jonah: And for what? A minimum-wage job cleaning toilets for a woman who hates our parents and most likely hates us too.
Aubrey: We’re not cleaning toilets. Didn’t you read Edward’s email?
Jonah: Who?
Aubrey: Edward Franklin. The summer hire coordinator. There are lots of jobs you can choose from. I’m going to be a lifeguard.
Jonah: Well bully for you.
Milly: You don’t have to be a dick about it.
Milly: Also, who says “bully for you”? What are you, 80?
Then they argued for ten minutes while I ghosted the conversation because…confrontation. Not my thing.
The last time I saw any Story relative was right after we moved to Oregon, when my father’s youngest brother breezed through for a weekend visit. Uncle Archer doesn’t have children, but as soon as he arrived, he dropped onto the floor like a Lego expert to help me with the town I was building. A few hours later, he vomited into my toy chest. It wasn’t until recently that I realized he’d been drunk the whole time.
Dad used to call himself and his brothers and sister the Four As, back when he still talked regularly about them. Adam, Anders, Allison, and Archer, born a year apart from one another. They all had distinct roles in the family: Adam was the golden-boy athlete, Anders the brilliant eccentric, Allison the reserved beauty, and Archer the charming jokester.
Uncle Anders, Jonah’s father, is the only one who didn’t inherit the family good looks. In old pictures he’s short, scrawny, and sharp-featured, with eyebrows like slashes and a perpetual thin-lipped smirk. That’s how I picture Jonah whenever I read his messages.
I’m about to put my phone away when a new message pops up, from Milly to me. It’s the first time she’s ever texted me without including Jonah. Aubrey, important question for you: Is it just me, or is Jonah a total ass?
A grin tugs at the corners of my mouth as I type, It’s not just you. I open Thomas’s glove compartment, where he keeps a handy assortment of snacks, and dig out a brown sugar–cinnamon Pop-Tart. Not my favorite, but my stomach is rumbling with postmeet hunger pangs.
Milly: I mean, nobody’s thrilled about this. I might not be signed up for Genius Camp, but I still have things I’d rather be doing.
Before I can respond, another message pops up, from Jonah in our group chat. That ferry time is inconvenient and I don’t see the point in arriving in tandem anyway.
Milly: Omg why is he such trash???
Jonah: Excuse me?
Milly: …
Milly: Sorry, wrong chat.
Milly, in our private chat: Fuck.
I laugh through a mouthful of Pop-Tart, and Thomas glances at me. “What’s so funny?” he asks.
I swallow. “My cousin Milly. I think I’m going to like her.”
“That’s good. At least the summer won’t be a total loss.”
Thomas drums his fingers on one side of the steering wheel as he turns onto my street. It’s narrow and winding, filled with modest ranches and split-levels. It was supposed to be our starter home, bought after my father’s first novel was published almost ten years ago. The book wasn’t a blockbuster, but it was well reviewed enough that he was offered a contract for a second novel. Which he still hasn’t written, even though author is the only job he’s had since I was in grade school. For the longest time, I thought he got paid for reading books, not writing them, since that was all he ever did. Turns out he just doesn’t get paid at all.
Thomas pulls into our driveway and shifts into park but doesn’t cut the engine. “Do you want to come in?” I ask.
“Um.” Thomas takes a deep breath, his hand still drumming on the steering wheel. “So, I think…”
I lick my lips, which taste like cinnamon and chlorine, while I wait for him to go on. When he doesn’t, I prod, “You think what?”
His shoulders tense, then rise in a shrug. “Just—not today. I have stuff to do.”
I don’t have the energy to ask what stuff. I lean toward him for a kiss, but Thomas pulls back. “Better not. I don’t wanna get sick.”
Stung, I retreat. Guess that’s what I get for lying. “Okay. Text me later?”
“Sure,” Thomas says. As soon as I’m out of the car and shut the door, he reverses out of my driveway. I watch him drive up the street with an uneasy flutter in my stomach. It’s not as though Thomas waits for me to make it through the front door when he drives me home, but he doesn’t usually take off quite that fast.
The house is quiet when I get inside. When Mom is around she always has music on, usually the nineties grunge she liked in college. For one hopeful second I think that means I have the place to myself, but I’ve barely set foot in the living room before my father’s voice stops me.
“Back so soon?”
My stomach twists as I turn to see him sitting in a leather armchair that’s too big for the cramped corner of our living room. His author chair, the one Mom bought when his book was published. It would look better in one of those office-slash-libraries with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, an imposing mahogany desk, and a hearth. Our tabby cat, Eloise, lies stretched across his lap. When I don’t reply, he asks, “How was the meet?”
I blink at him. He can’t really expect me to answer that question. Not after the bomb he dropped last night. But he just gazes back calmly, putting a finger in the book he’s holding to mark his page. I recognize the cover, the bold black font against a muted, almost watercolor-like background. A Brief and Broken Silence, by Adam Story. It’s his novel, about a former college athlete who achieves literary stardom and then realizes that what he really wants is to live a simple life off the grid—except his rabid fans won’t leave him alone.
I’m pretty sure my father was hoping the book would turn out to be autobiographical. It didn’t, but he still rereads it at least once a year.
You might as well, I think, my temper flaring. No one else does.
But I don’t say it. “Where’s Mom?”
“Your mother…” Dad hesitates, squinting as the sunlight streaming through the picture window reaches his eyes. The light brings out glints in his dark hair and gives him a golden glow he doesn’t deserve. It makes my chest hurt, now, to think about how mindlessly I’ve always worshiped my father. How deeply I believed that he was brilliant, and special, and destined for amazing things. I was honored that he’d given me an A name. I was the Fifth A, I used to tell myself, and one day I’d be just like them. Glamorous, mysterious, and just a little bit tragic. “Your mother is taking some time.”