No. He can’t work for them. He turned them down. A hundred times. He always turns them down. He rips up their offer letters and throws them in the trash. I’ve seen him do it countless times!
“You’re lying.” I fix my gaze accusingly on Frankie. “Dad would never work for those soul-sucking corporate buffoons.”
He chuckles. “That’s exactly what Dad calls them.”
I shiver. I know that’s what Dad calls them. That’s where I got it.
“If he knows that they’re soul-sucking corporate buffoons, then why does he work for them?”
Frankie shrugs. “The art thing wasn’t working out. They sent him the offer and he took it.”
I hold my head in my hands like I’m trying to stop my brains from bursting out of my ears. “No, no, no. The art thing did work out. It did! It just took a little time. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t wait. Why he didn’t have confidence in himself.”
Frankie shrugs. “There’s no telling what chain reaction causes someone to do something differently in one universe or another. There are an infinite number of possible factors that could have contributed to Dad’s decision to take a job that forces him to be on the road more than half the year.”
“More than half the year?!” I cry, feeling like something heavy is sitting on my chest, pushing down. “Is that why Mom works from home?”
“Only in the afternoons when I get home from school. Why? Mom doesn’t work from home in your life?”
I throw my hands up. “No! She’s always at the office and ever since she made partner, we hardly see her at all.”
“She made partner?”
I blink at him with sudden comprehension. “She’s not a partner at the firm?”
Frankie shakes his head. “She’s a senior associate.”
“So she never got a promotion and bought the Lexus?”
Frankie whistles. “Whoa. Mom drives a Lexus in your world?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, as more pieces fall into place. “She gave me the Honda and I named it Woody. That’s why she was so upset. I really did take her car.”
I fall onto my back and stare up at the constellations of little plastic stars that Frankie glued to his ceiling. Then he lies down next to me and we stargaze together.
“I don’t understand,” I say, tears brimming in my eyes. “Why would Dad take that job offer? He promised me he would never sell out. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes sense in the grand cosmic scheme of things. That’s where everything has meaning. We just can’t always see what that meaning is.”
I glance at my brother out of the corner of my eye. I don’t know what I’d do without him. I’d be so lost right now. I mean, I’m lost even with his explanations.
“For instance,” he goes on, “who knows why in this life I read all the Harry Potter books six times, while in the other life…” He leaves the sentence hanging, prompting me to finish it.
“That’s a trick question,” I say flatly. “Once you found out there were seven Horcruxes, you had to read the series seven times. You said it had universal significance.”
“Dang it!” He punches the air with his fist. “There has to be something different about me in this universe! There has to be a variable!”
I let out an exhausted sigh. “To be honest, I’m kind of glad there isn’t. I’m not sure my heart can take any more radical changes to this family.”
I don’t understand how my one stupid decision could change so much.
My dad sold out to a soul-sucking corporation.
My mom never made partner because she had to stay home in the afternoons to watch Frankie.
My life has gotten infinitely better while my parents’ lives seem to have gotten worse. How is that possible?
We lie there in silence for a moment as I try to sort through everything that’s happened since I fell on those stairs. Sequoia and Lucinda and the fund-raising gala and my Columbia application that said “economics” instead of “journalism.”
“Frankie,” I say after a moment.
“Mmm?” He sounds distant and pensive. He’s probably still trying to figure out what his “variable” is.
“What’s my thing?”
He lets his head loll toward me. “Your thing?”
“Yeah,” I say, curling onto my side to look at him. “You know, my thing. My passion. The one hobby that I put all my effort into.”
He shrugs and turns back to the ceiling. “You have lots of things.”
I think about the Activities tab in my Windsor Achiever app and how I literally had to scroll down the page to see them all. “But there must be one thing that I like better than the others. One thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.”
He laughs. “The menagerie of animals in your phone is what gets you out of bed in the morning.”
I swat him with the back of my hand. “You know what I mean. You have your board game and in my old life I had this newspaper. A really amazing, award-winning school newspaper. What do I have in this life?”
“Hmmm.” His mouth scrunches to one side. “I can’t think of only one thing. You really do everything.”
I roll onto my back again and stare up at the fake stars, tracing their patterns with my eyes, trying to identify their shapes and meanings. But somehow, they seem misaligned. Out of order. Constellations that have wandered out of their formations, until they’re just chaotic clusters with no rhyme or reason.
“Do you miss Dad?” I ask Frankie after a while, and then, with a breaking voice I add, “Do I miss Dad?” I clear my throat. “I mean, Other Me.”
“Sure. Of course. We all miss him. It was bad at first. But then I guess we kind of got used to it.”
My throat starts to sting. I can’t imagine getting used to Dad not being here every day. Not waking me up with badly sung show tunes in the morning. Not listening to him crack lame jokes while he makes us waffles.
Not being … well, Dad.
That word—that title—has always been synonymous with a very clear picture in my mind. A picture of a man who loves what he does, but loves his family more. A man who takes care of us. All of us. Who calms my mother down when she’s stressed about work. Who quizzes me before tests. Who helps Frankie with his eternally unfinished board game. Who cooks dinner and keeps the house clean. Who’s talked me down from so many metaphorical ledges, I’ve lost count.
A man who makes everything seem possible and nothing seem impossible.
Who chased his dream through the darkest valleys and over the highest mountains, and through the most shadowy woods, until he finally caught it. Until he sold out his very first gallery show.
Now all of that is gone.
And somehow I’m responsible, even though I don’t know why.
I sit up before any more weight can push down on my chest.
“C’mon,” I say, nudging Frankie. “Mom says I have to make you dinner.”
He pushes himself up and shoots me a skeptical look. “What are you making?”
“Only the greatest sandwich in the world. It’s called the Duke. It’s one of Dad’s specialties.”
Frankie still doesn’t look convinced. “I don’t remember Dad ever making that.”
I smile. It’s strained at best. “That’s okay. Because I do.”