“Because it’s okay to be different?” She looked skeptical; she’d heard that line before.
“Because we’re going to be different together. As long as you don’t have one, I won’t have one. We’ll both do fine.” She almost added, “I promise,” but stopped short. She didn’t believe in making promises about things outside of her own control.
Sophie nodded like she understood. Val kissed her daughter’s forehead and counted the hours until she could run all this out of her mind.
PART TWO
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JULIE
Julie stared at David through the vines. February rain on the aquarium rainforest pavilion’s glass ceiling enhanced the illusion they were someplace tropical. They went to the aquarium once a year, always on the dreariest, slushiest, most miserable February day. Some guesswork was involved in the decision. Was this the day? Or might there be a worse one?
She felt like they’d chosen right this time. Icy rain spattered the glass high overhead, but the rainforest humidity had already stripped their winter layers; her coat was heavy in her arms. Bright-plumed birds swooped through the upper reaches, unperturbed by the masses of running, screaming children. Her mind wasn’t on the children, or the birds, or the rain.
“You’re doing what?” she repeated. She didn’t know how many times she had asked already.
“Mom, you don’t need to raise your voice.” All David’s attention seemed to be on her and her reaction, and whether she was going to make a scene. She was.
“What do you mean, you’re not going to college? Your applications are in. We visited fourteen campuses. Do you know how long those stupid financial aid forms took?”
“Mom, maybe we should talk about this at home.”
“You’re the one who brought it up here.”
“I, uh, think that might have been a mistake.”
“That’s the mistake?” She raised her voice a notch. He winced, and she dialed it back again. “The mistake is that you’re telling me in a goddamn rainforest, not that you’ve changed your mind about college?”
“I’ve thought about this. I just wasn’t sure when to tell you. It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s a big deal.”
David sighed and studied some moss. Julie took the moment to glance around. No sign of Val and Sophie, who had left to find a bathroom ages ago. David looked on the verge of tears. He cried only when he was really frustrated.
She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll tone it down, but you better start explaining. What’s going on, Davey?”
“This guy came to school to talk to us. He said they’d teach us how to use our Pilots better. He said it was a good match of skills, not making us fit into the old ideas of what we should do next.”
“What guy, Davey? Who is ‘they’? And why didn’t he talk to you before we paid the application fees?”
David stared at the moss, then scratched at his Pilot light and met her eyes. “The Army.”
“The what?” This time, it didn’t take a Pilot for Julie to notice people staring. She didn’t care.
“I thought you’d understand better than Ma,” he said. “I’m taking control of my future.”
Val and Sophie appeared beside them as if on cue.
“Did we miss something?” Sophie asked, looking from Julie to David and back.
“Your son,” Julie said, as if Val had spoken rather than Sophie, “has decided to get killed in some foreign country instead of go to college.”
“What’s she talking about?” Val posed her question to David.
This time he put some force behind his answer, a cannonball instead of a toe in the water. “I’m joining the Army.” He looked at Val’s face, then Julie’s, clearly trying to triangulate where the sympathy and understanding would come from. Julie set her expression.
Sophie furrowed her brow, trying to follow. “You’re not really going to get killed, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” David threw an arm around her. “I’m going to get trained. They said they have a special track for people who pass a fitness test and an academic test and have had a Pilot for more than two years. We did the tests in school. I made ninety-ninth percentile in both. That’s the best score I’ve gotten on any test ever.” The last bit was clearly for their benefit, not Sophie’s.
“Parents pay how much to that school and they let in recruiters?” Val muttered to Julie. Julie squeezed her hand.
“I’m serious about this. You know I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t thought about it.” That was true. He was not a boy who ever came to them with notions; by the time he verbalized anything, it was a plan.
“Is it me, or is it two hundred degrees in here?” Sophie asked.
“It’s definitely hot,” Val said. “And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to move on. Come on, the best part is still ahead.”
Sophie followed her toward the exit and the long ramp through the shark tank. Julie watched to make sure Sophie made it through the airlock vestibule designed to keep the birds in. Anytime Sophie noticed the temperature it was worth a change in situation; heat triggered her seizures as surely as anything did.
Julie put a hand on David’s arm to hold him back. “I get that you’re serious, but this one is going to take me a while to wrap my head around. Can we table it until some colleges respond? Maybe some school will offer you a scholarship for that ninety-ninth-percentile brain.”
Don’t do it! she wanted to say. He put his giant hand over hers, then removed hers from his arm. He did it with such tenderness she almost wouldn’t have realized it was a brush-off. Almost.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll wait until more colleges respond, if you need me to, but I won’t change my mind. We
