short stories.

* * * * *

You’ve never known what home was. You think, as you see the city fade from sight, that a part of you fades away too, that side of you whose voice doesn’t quiver when you speak and who feels smart sometimes, capable, listened to. The crescendoing treeline, tangled with telephone poles, starts to swoop by, the train blurring past them like the formative years of your life. 

You will lose the part of yourself you have grown into as you cross state lines and re-enter your rural suburb. Regardless of the life you think you see passing by, you will feel like a child once again. You have not yet been home after such a long period of distance, but you know this nonetheless. It sits in your stomach like a corpse decomposing, its rotting body unfurling to reveal acrid insides. 

Virginia is as you left it. The trees valiantly hold hands, one last line of defense against the expansion of Route Seven—one more lane, they insist again every year. That’ll fix it. The skies are bright but a patchy white, hinting at imminent darkness. The sun will set by five thirty. 

Dad picks you up from the train station. It nearly feels familial, the way he’s waiting for you outside his car, the way he hugs you and takes your suitcase and puts it in the trunk, the way he asks how the trip down was. But only nearly. Though the car ride home from the Metro is fifteen minutes on a good day, it feels like thirty in the silence. You sit on your hands, look out the window. Make small talk. 

Dad said it snowed the other night. You agree. In New York it was like six inches. 

He says that’s not too bad. You shrug ambivalently; when you had gone out to a cafe for a warm drink, you were up to your knees in it at the crosswalk. You’re glad it hadn’t snowed during school, though. If you can avoid it, you will; here, you know you’ll be out shoveling if it comes down again. 

Teen pop plays in the car—not the radio, against all odds, but Dad’s own music library. You frown; it's an artist you'd mentioned in passing some couple phone calls ago, a twenty-something pop-punk girl. You scroll through the library of music and find her entire album’s been downloaded. 

The song ends and changes to Solsbury Hill. It’s a cool one because the time signature’s seven-four, but that's not something you can say without invoking a music conversation that he would be all too pleased by for all the wrong reasons. Instead, the silence sits on your chest and digs its claws into your shoulders. 

The house smells the same when you enter. Homey. It reminds you of being a child, coming home from vacations, some sort of relief despite the return to reality. You pass by the piano on the way to put down your bags. The lid is solemnly down, adorned with a film of dust you could write your name in. 

Dad walks by. Asks if you played any in school. You did, but you can’t admit out loud to him that you only practiced once or twice. That’s the kind of thing that would have made your mom cry if she were alive, and the only thing worse than your dad’s disappointment is your own.  You’d taken the score of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy—the piece your mom never finished—and a book of Bach inventions to school, and you say that instead of answering yes or no. 

You sit down on the bench anyway, just to feel that fourteen-year-old spike of dread. Just to feel like you’ve really returned, to that same seat, too old to be comfortable, creaky from age and wear of mothers and daughters past.

Are the pianos any good in the dorm? 

No, there’re three and they’re all shit. Out, outer, and outest of tune. You’d asked an RA to do something about it and they’d given you an address to email. You never reached out.

You put your hands on the keys, but they don’t move or press down because you have nothing memorized anymore. You think of Maxwell, and how he, as always, had been the better twin, taking music classes in school and getting a private teacher. Learning new pieces. Getting better. Like he’s kept watering his fourteen-year-old plant and it has continued to grow and sprout and blossom while you have just left yours to wither and crisp at the edges. Resentment or envy or bitterness or some acidic combination of the three boils in your stomach and evaporates up your throat because you have nothing to show for this thing that you think you’ve lost, maybe without ever even having had it in the first place. And more than anything, it made you miserable. Leaving it behind should have felt good. 

It doesn’t feel good because the pianist you were was formidable. Is formidable, probably, if you could just coax some noise from the keys without feeling like that plant is taking root in your stomach and gnarling and twisting and overgrowing. Especially since you should have just shut up and been grateful for the plant to begin with, a gift horse you shouldn’t be staring straight in the mouth. 

* * *

The fridge is already stocked with fruit even though you know Dad doesn’t eat it. The oranges smell like festivities and coziness and things to look forward to, like happy families and warm smiles. They taste like Christmases past. The other usual fruits are there—the ones Dad knows you and Maxwell like, the ones he buys even if they’re not on sale: two punnets of strawberries, two bags of green grapes. Dad pays attention until he doesn’t. You know the blackberries will be the last to get eaten even though they spoil the fastest. 

What do you want for dinner? 

I’m open to anything. You may as well be a guest in this house, anyway. It’s never your place to decide. What are you thinking? 

He suggests going out for fast food since it’s your and Maxwell’s first day back, and you agree. It’s easier for him and you can enjoy the luxury of not having to pay for your own food. 

Sounds good. You pull your medications from your backpack. 

What dose are you on of the SSRIs? 

Ten milligrams a day right now. I’m increasing by five each week, though. 

Until what? 

Probably… uh, I mean, soon. The psych said we’re going to keep it slow. Gradual. You actually have no idea because you didn’t know you should have asked. But it’s always better with Dad to sound like you know at least a little bit rather than nothing, especially, and this is just your hypothesis, when it pertains to things that alter your brain chemistry. 

Is it working?

I don’t know. Maybe? It’s only been a few weeks though, and the psych said it might take a couple months. 

What happens after? Do you stop the talk therapy and just take the meds, or what? 

Um. No? I mean, they’re both helpful in different ways, I think. Like one can’t replace the other. These are never a conversation. Always an interrogation. You get a mug with water and down the tablets. 

Oh, they are? I’d have no idea. 

It’s never too late, you think. He should go. You don’t bring it up, though, because he is an engineer at heart, so you know by now there’s nothing he can’t rationalize and no one he can’t out-rationalize. 

Yeah, I mean, that’s… yeah. You wander into the pantry.  Don’t know how to fill these awkward silences with anything other than distractions. There’s nothing there you feel like eating, just tortilla chips and some other things Dad likes that you don’t because of the taste they leave in your mouth, sour like guilt. The orange is fine for now anyway. 

You hear Dad’s heavy footsteps fade up the stairs to his bedroom, where he works. Oh. The silence drops off your chest, frees your shoulders. You unpack. 

Later that night, you pick up Max, get takeout for dinner, and watch some basketball documentary on the T.V. with Dad even though neither of you particularly care about basketball. Dad is very clinically interested in everything, though, and you are interested in doing things with him without having to do things with him. Max is interested in sleeping, and does so until the end credits roll. 

* * *

Lunar New Year falls outside of American winter break, so you eat shabu shabu a week before it ends. You’re in the Korean grocery store now, perusing the aisles for your typical add-ins—napa cabbage, some different textures of tofu, different flavors of fish ball. 

You point out a clump of long-stemmed mushrooms with tiny little caps, looking all together like a jellyfish. 

You want those? Dad takes a package and tosses them into the cart. We like that slim-cut beef, and we should get sauce, too. 

He takes the cart over to the meat section. It’s always too cold for you here, and even in your coat, you’re shivering, arms pulled to your sides and neck stiff. 

This kind? Or this? He points. You look between the two. He would know better than you would, but he still waits for your answer. 

Maybe this one. We have a lot of other things too so we probably don’t need that much. You point to the lower shelf. The packs of meat are a fleshy magenta, squishy and damp on a styrofoam tray, wet despite the vacuum sealing. 

Makes sense. Dad chooses one from the bottom with a hand in a filmy plastic produce bag, then inverts it around the whole package. Sauce, and then we’re done. 

You think it’s kind of nice to go shopping and not have to be the head of the operation, for the grocery store to be so slow-paced, woozy, shrugging its doors open. No pace, no pulse, squarish carts churning and squeezing through intestinal aisles. You get to wander through the store, following, until Dad stops in front of you. 

I read that we should try Ponzu sauce. It’s… here it is. What do we think—Regular? Or chili? 

Dad looks at Max, who makes a considering face, but shrugs. You know he wants chili, but Dad can’t do spicy. 

I mean, they both look good. Max shrugs again. I… ah, it’s up to you. 

You wanna try both? Dad looks between you and him. You nod, shrug, say okay. He echoes you agreeably and takes one of each bottle, and they knock together in your bag as you’re carrying them out to the car. 

* * *

On the ride home, you’re in the backseat staring out the window when Dad asks if you’re ready to go back for second semester. 

Maxwell answers first, which initially seems like a relief, but you soon realize it only makes you feel worse. He talks about his piano teacher, the new pieces he’s starting, the sleep schedule he improved. How he’s trying this new thing where he studies a little bit of all his subjects every day instead of cramming as necessary. 

And you? 

You look at the backs of Dad’s and Maxwell’s heads in the driver and passenger seats and figure this is as good a time as any to confess. At least you don’t have to make eye contact. 

I don’t… love school. It actually kind of sucks. 

What? How? In what way? 

Just… some of my teachers are dumb? I don’t feel like I’m learning anything. 

Well, you know, it’s only your first year… 

No, I know, but I just like—can’t do it. 

Now his voice sounds concerned. You mean, academically? 

No, no, like—it’s just—it feels like high school all over again. 

There’s a pause. You swallow, and there’s something in your throat that sticks, that’s impossible to push down. 

Look, school is hard. It wasn’t easy for me either. It wasn’t even fun a lot of the time. But, you know, that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. 

Yeah, but—I—I’m not. I wasn’t. 

You weren’t what? 

What do you mean? I wasn’t successful. 

Dad scoffs. That’s, I mean, that’s provably untrue. I’d argue that you were extremely successful in high school. Your grades were solid. You took upper-level classes. Your SAT score—

Everything fades to a buzz. Because as if you don’t know. As if you don’t fucking know that. As if you didn’t spend the first two of the past four years doing everything you hated extremely well. And as if it didn’t start catching up to you to the point where you had to just fake everything to get by, to the point where you seemed like you were doing extremely well even though you weren’t doing anything—you were cheating on tests and looking up homework answers and hating yourself for everything you should be able to do, and everything you weren’t. 

And how could you say anything? Since when had saying something been an option? You learned not to look those gift horses in their fucking mouths, right? 

I guess, is all you say. You’re right. I don’t know. It’s just hard.

* * *

Shabu shabu is quiet. It’s quiet, but the table is crowded like you think you can fill the empty air with food—different plates of raw cabbage, meat, and eggs are at the ends of the table, guarded by the unopened bottles of Ponzu sauce and a tin of Sa Cha. In the middle sits the titular hot pot—squarish metal shaped like a large baking pan, the ghost of ladles past swirling silver along the walls and bottom. The flowers on the off-white lid blossom faintly, a pattern reminiscent of the odd bowl or platter or vase that winked in the background of every one of my childhood memories; inexplicable, inextricable. The water shabu-shabus as it reaches boiling temperature. 

You all take some photos together and then quickly get into it. Raw egg first, beat into your bowl, followed by your sauce of choice. After that, anything’s fair game to add to the communal pot. The cabbage cooks the slowest, though, so Dad carefully drops in handfuls of it first, as always. You insist on adding noodles at the beginning too, because it’s dumb to do it at the very end even if tradition disagrees. 

After a couple minutes of adding sauce to taste, you all realize that the Ponzus you just bought taste the same as each other, watery and weak, despite being different flavors. Your chest aches, though, thinking about Dad buying both flavors for you and Max only for us to set them to the side. 

Look, hey— Dad turns to you. About school. 

You use the noodles in your mouth as a buffer. Dad takes the cue and keeps talking. 

Is this, like, a mental block thing? 

You pause, take time to swallow. I mean—what do you mean? I guess it is? 

Look, I’m just trying to understand. And, see—he says that, but it just comes off defensive. Like— ‘cause you were doing well in high school. So I just don’t get what changed. 

God. This is the worst. Well I don’t know if I was doing that well in high school, you say. Everything out of your mouth sounds petulant to you and you’ve never felt more like a child stamping your foot. The frustration feeds itself because it makes you want to cry. You will yourself not to, even though you can already feel it in your throat, stinging behind your eyes. You swallow as hard as you can. If you cry, everything you say will be undermined. 

Right, well, that’s what I just don’t understand. You did incredibly well in high school. And you said your grades are good now too. 

Well, I was incredibly depressed in high school, and nothing’s changed. 

And last year when you said you thought the therapist and the meds were working? What about that? 

You shake your head and flounder around for words. Nothing comes out. You consider what course of action to take—if making your point is worth it or if it would be better to just exit the conversation. 

I don’t know what non-depression feels like, Dad, you say. I did think it was working. 

I just— He sighs like a lit fuse. You get that this seems out of the blue for me, right? He sounds extremely put-upon, like you’re being the exasperating one here. And you know what? Fine. 

Well sorry I couldn’t tell you I cheated on tests and didn’t learn anything in junior and senior year. The tears are for sure going to come now. That’s why I told you I didn’t want to take some of my AP exams. Because I would have failed. 

It doesn’t feel good to say. You want to say it like you’re rubbing it in, or something, but it’s just humiliating. Especially in front of Max, who has always been the better test-taker. 

I—what? 

You don’t respond. What else is there to say? 

Why didn’t you say anything in high school? 

You don’t know what gives him the right, again, to sound affronted. Maybe somehow he feels blindsided. And maybe that’s on you. But maybe you don’t want to spell everything out for him because it would mean he is and has always been completely unaware of the environment that shaped you. And maybe you, something he will never, ever understand, don’t want to be proven right. 

I don’t know, you say, even though you do. We just don’t talk about things, you say, even though that won’t be acceptable. 

Did I not ask you the right questions? Was I supposed to prompt you to tell me that stuff? Or was I just supposed to read your mind? 

He really doesn’t know. That’s the worst part. That he, as the only adult in your immediate life, has created the way you think, built your cynicism, your hope, your entire perception around family and is completely unaware. 

No! Did I say that? I never said it was your fault. 

Funnily enough, it is somehow his fault, just not in the way he seems to think it’s his fault, which is that it’s actually your fault for not saying anything without his prompting. What he fails to remember is that he is your father and you are his child and your faults, therefore, are his. 

Okay, well—then I don’t know what you’re trying to say. 

What are you trying to say? That you’re not the only one between the two of you that should be getting psychiatric help? That Virginia is only home when you’re four states away? That it’s the unfillable silences in a car that seats four and the unpressable keys of that big, lonely piano that kept you from ever telling him anything? 

But maybe you’re trying to say nothing. Maybe you just don’t live here anymore. And maybe Virginia will perpetually be as you left it. 

I’m not trying to say anything, you say. The noodles in your bowl are cold. Maybe you should have put them in the pot at the end, after all. 

* * *

You and Max clean up dinner. It had been too messy, with the soup that dripped all over the table and all the fishy things that need containers and will have to be eaten shortly lest they spoil. There will be too much for the family to eat. Dad will eat it alone when you and Max leave in a week. 

Happy Lunar New Year, guys, Dad says. 

Thanks, you say. Happy New Year. 

Happy New Year, Max says, once Dad is nearly completely out of earshot. 

You both wipe the counters in relative silence. Lids click onto containers and get loaded into the fridge. Max goes to start on dishes but after turning on the faucet, he stares at the sponge and does nothing. The cuffs of his sleeves, sliding down his arms, are getting wet and he is letting them.

I failed first semester, he finally says. 

You pause. What? you ask. You know you heard him, though.

I’m on academic probation. They’re not going to let me come back this spring. 

Oh. 

Yeah. 

How? I mean—just, how?

He glances down the hallway. It stays empty. I failed some classes. 

So… what do you do now?

I… he sighs. I don’t know. I’ll figure something out. I’m trying to talk to the academic council thing. 

Oh. Okay. Does— You feel like a little kid again. Does Dad know?

‘Course not, he says, shutting off the tap. And if everything goes right, he won’t have to. 

Right, you say. The last of the soup containers are in the fridge. You go back to the table to get the remaining bottles of sauce and then switch off the light over the table. You and Max both seem to know that that means the conversation is over. 

You put the Ponzu sauces away in the door of the fridge, where they will clink every time it gets opened and closed. Nobody really liked them, but it’d be a shame for them to go to waste. 

You doubt it, but you think maybe Dad will use them when you’re gone in a week. You doubt it, but you think maybe they’ll taste better next year.

* * * * *