Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You

Nath nodded.

“The letter got delivered to the Wolffs,” he said, holding it out. But James barely glanced at it. He was looking at Nath, and for once he was not frowning, and Nath realized he had grown as tall as his father, that they could look at each other eye to eye.

“Not bad,” James said. He smiled, as if half-embarrassed, and put his hand on Nath’s shoulder, and Nath felt it — heavy and warm — through his shirt. “Marilyn. Guess what?”

His mother’s heels clattered in from the kitchen. “Nath,” she said, kissing him hard, on the cheek. “Nath, really?” She plucked the letter from his grip. “My god, Class of 1981,” she said, “doesn’t that make you feel old, James?” Nath wasn’t listening. He thought: It’s happening. I did it, I made it, I’m going .

At the top of the stairs, Lydia watched her father’s hand tighten on Nath’s shoulder. She could not remember the last time he had smiled at Nath like that. Her mother held the letter to the light, as if it were a precious document. Hannah, elbows hooked over the arm of the sofa, swung her feet in glee. Her brother himself stood silent, awed and grateful, 1981 glistening in his eyes like a beautiful far-off star, and something wobbled inside Lydia and tumbled into her chest with a clang. As if they heard it, everyone looked up toward her, and just as Nath opened his mouth to shout out the good news, Lydia called, “Mom, I’m failing physics. I’m supposed to let you know.”

• • •

That night, while Nath brushed his teeth, the bathroom door creaked open and Lydia appeared, leaning against the doorjamb. Her face was pale, almost gray, and for a moment he felt sorry for her. Over dinner, their mother had moved from frantic questions — how could she let this happen, didn’t she realize — to blunt statements: “Imagine yourself older and unable to find a job. Just imagine it.” Lydia hadn’t argued, and faced with her daughter’s silence, Marilyn had found herself repeating that dire warning again and again. “Do you think you’ll just find a man and get married? Is that all you plan for your life?” It had been all she could do to keep from crying right there at the table. After half an hour, James said, “Marilyn—” but she had glared so fiercely that he subsided, prodding shreds of pot roast in the separating onion-soup gravy. Everyone had forgotten about Harvard, about Nath’s letter, about Nath himself.

After dinner, Lydia had found Nath in the living room. The letter from Harvard lay on the coffee table, and she touched the seal where it said VERITAS.

“Congratulations,” she said softly. “I knew you’d get in.” Nath had been too angry to speak to her and fixed his eyes on the television screen, where Donny and Marie were singing in perfect harmony, and before the song was over Lydia had run upstairs to her room and slammed the door. Now there she stood in the doorway, ashen and barefoot on the bathroom tiles.

He knew what Lydia wanted now: for him to offer reassurance, a humiliation, a moment he’d rather forget. Something to make her feel better. Mom will get over it. It will be okay. Remember when…? But he didn’t want to remember all the times his father had doted on Lydia but stared at him with disappointment flaring in his eyes, all the times their mother had praised Lydia but looked over and past and through him, as if he were made of air. He wanted to savor the long-awaited letter, the promise of getting away at last, a new world waiting as white and clean as chalk.

He spat fiercely into the sink without looking at her, swishing the last bit of froth down the drain with his fingers.

“Nath,” Lydia whispered as he turned to go, and he knew by the tremble in her voice that she’d been crying, that she was about to begin again.

“Goodnight,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

• • •

The next morning, Marilyn thumbtacked the failed test to the kitchen wall across from Lydia’s seat. For the next three days, from breakfast until dinner, she plopped the physics book in front of her daughter and sat down beside her. All Lydia needed, she thought, was a little encouragement. Momentum and inertia, kinetic and potential — these things still lingered in the corners of her own mind. She read aloud over Lydia’s shoulder: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. She worked through the failed test with Lydia again and again until Lydia could solve every problem correctly.

What Lydia did not tell her mother was that, by the third time through, she had simply memorized the right answers. All day, while she huddled over her physics book at the table, she waited for her father to intercede: That’s enough, Marilyn. It’s Christmas break, for God’s sake. But he said nothing. Lydia had refused to speak to Nath since that night —as she thought of it — and she suspected, correctly, that he was angry at her as well; he avoided the kitchen entirely, except for meals. Even Hannah would have been some comfort — a small and silent buffer — but as usual, she was nowhere to be seen. In actuality, Hannah had planted herself under the end table in the foyer, just out of sight of the kitchen, listening to the scratch of Lydia’s pencil. She hugged her knees and sent soft and patient thoughts, but her sister did not hear them. By Christmas morning, Lydia was furious at them all, and even the discovery that Marilyn had at last unpinned the test from the wall failed to cheer her up.

Sitting down around the Christmas tree felt sullied now, too. James lifted one ribboned package after another from the pile, handing each around, but Lydia dreaded the gift from her mother. Usually her mother gave her books — books that, although neither of them fully realized it, her mother secretly wanted herself, and which, after Christmas, Marilyn would sometimes borrow from Lydia’s shelf. To Lydia, they were always too hard no matter what age she was, less presents than unsubtle hints. Last year, it was The Color Atlas of Human Anatomy , so large it wouldn’t fit on the shelf upright; the year before, she had received a thick volume called Famous Women of Science. The famous women had bored her. Their stories were all the same: told they couldn’t; decided to anyway. Because they really wanted to, she wondered, or because they were told not to? And the anatomy had made her queasy — men and women with their skin peeled off, then their muscles stripped away, until they were nothing but skeletons laid bare. She’d flipped through some of the color plates and slammed the book and squirmed in her seat, as if she could shake off the feeling like a dog shook rain off its fur.

Nath, watching his sister’s eyes blink and redden, felt a twinge of pity cut through his anger. He had read the letter from Harvard eleven times now and had finally convinced himself it was real: they had actually accepted him. In nine months, he would be gone, and that knowledge took the sting out of all that had happened. So what if his parents cared more about Lydia’s failure than his success? He was leaving. And when he got to college — Lydia would have to stay behind. The thought, finally put into words, was bittersweet. As his father passed him a present wrapped in red foil, Nath flashed Lydia a tentative smile, which she pretended not to see. After three comfortless days, she was not ready to forgive him yet, but the gesture warmed her, like a gulp of tea on a cold winter day.