“How long have you known?” he says finally, the letter falling to his knees. His eyes are still on the valley, the peaks and slopes of the hills across from us.
“Not long. I only got your dad’s letter two days ago.”
“So that’s why you were busy yesterday.”
“I needed to process. To be sure.”
“And are you? Sure?”
I nod for a moment before realizing he won’t see. “Yes.”
“How?”
“I called the cryobank. They assured me they don’t make mistakes, that the records are correct. And I—I also talked to your dad. This morning. I had to make sure he was the one who wrote it. I needed to know it wasn’t another Elliot Jackson. He wanted to tell you, but I said it had to be me.”
“My dad knows? He knew before me?” His voice cracks now, like this is the worst part of it all, the biggest injustice. “You should have told me first.”
“I needed to be one hundred percent positive. I didn’t want to plant the idea in your head, make you change your mind about me. About us. Not until it was absolutely necessary.”
“Who else? Who else knew before me?”
“Ginger.” I sigh. “I told her yesterday. When I was trying to process. And then she told Noah.”
“Not your moms?”
“Not yet.”
He drops his head into his hands, clawing at his hair so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if he leaves clumps behind on this hill. “You don’t look anything like him. How is it possible?”
“Don’t I, though? I didn’t think so either. Not at first. But if you really look. There’s something there.”
“I don’t want to believe it, Calliope. I can’t. I just can’t. I mean—how does something like this even happen in real life? The odds are too crazy.”
“I know. I don’t want to believe it either. But we have to. It’s the truth.”
His face is still down, covered by his palms, but I don’t need to see tears to know that he’s crying.
I’ve never seen Max cry before.
But I suppose it would be strange if he didn’t cry now. I should be crying, too, but I feel too broken for more tears.
“Everything I wrote in the letter is true. I just… need to learn how to love you without being in love with you. I don’t have all the answers. But I know I still want you in my life.” I almost reach out to put my arm around his shoulders. I stop myself, though. Pin my hands under my thighs. It feels like I should be doing something more than sitting here and staring at him crying, but I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to comfort him.
“You should have told me yesterday,” he says finally. “As soon as you found out.”
“I was still hoping I was wrong. That it was all a horrible mix-up. I was trying to protect you. Me. Us.”
I slide off the edge of the rock and crawl on the ground to be next to him. Max pointedly turns his head farther in the opposite direction.
“Talk to me, Max. Please.”
The sun is beating down on me, but I feel cold. So cold.
“I can’t. I can’t talk to you. Not right now. I am so—” He pushes roughly up from the ground, scattering small pebbles in his wake. I watch them bounce and skid off the top of the hill, start their descent to the valley below. “My heart feels like someone pummeled it with a hammer. I’m so damn sad. But I’m so angry, too. I’m angry at life for putting me in this terrible old house we never should have come to—and I’m angry that you, out of every person on this planet, had to be my neighbor. I’m angry that we fell in love. I’m just… angry. So angry.”
“I’m angry, too,” I say quietly. But I don’t stand up next to him.
And I don’t try to follow when he starts back down the path.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us,” Mama says. I don’t think she’s blinked in the twenty minutes since I started talking.
“Which part?” I ask. “Me not telling you how much I really wanted to know about Frank, and requesting to be in touch after my birthday—or that Frank is actually our next-door neighbor and Max’s dad?”
“I’m going to say: both. All of it.”
Mimmy still hasn’t said anything. She’s staring into her nearly empty wineglass, processing.
I threw open the kitchen door after my walk down the hill, hoping they would both be there. And they were, laughing and sipping wine, nibbling on the rest of Mimmy’s blueberry oat bars. They looked so happy and calm. I hated that I had to ruin it.
“I have to tell you something.” I practically shouted it. A declaration.
“Oh Jesus, she’s pregnant,” Mama said, spilling a heavy pour of deep red wine down her—white, unfortunately—Hot Mama Flow T-shirt.
She was temporarily relieved at my insistence that I’m still a virgin. I wouldn’t normally want to discuss that kind of intimate detail so readily, but it felt important, knowing what was coming next.
The rest tumbled out after, sloppy and disordered, too many cluttered details. It’s a wonder they could make sense of it all.
“Elliot Jackson is your donor. Max is your brother. Your half brother.” Mimmy says it now like the words are just clicking into place, minutes after she first heard them.
“Yes.”
“How did we pick our neighbor? How is that possible?” She turns from me to Mama, back to me again.
I shrug. “Technically he wasn’t your neighbor at the time. He was already gone. Living in Philly. Only old Mr. Jackson—his dad—was there.”
“I’m not sure that changes anything,” Mama says. She shifts her chair closer to Mimmy’s, wraps an arm around her shoulders to keep her sturdy.
“Do you hate me?” I can’t look at them. Instead I pick at a stray blueberry on the plate of granola bars, mash it between my fingers.
“How can you even say that?” Mimmy asks. She lays her hand on the table, and I reach out to hold
