“I said I’m fine. Would you just let me be—”
“No!” Mila yells. “Stop it! There’s no arguing today. It’s my birthday, and I made a wish that there would be no more arguing. So stop it. All of you.” She’s on the verge of tears, but she’s not crying. Not yet.
“Okay, Mila,” my father says. “We’re sorry.” He looks at my mom and me. “We’re all sorry, right?”
“Yes.” I nod. “I’m sorry, Mila.”
“You’re right,” my mom agrees, finally taking her seat. “Let’s eat now.”
We are silent for a few minutes, except for the sounds of my mom dishing out noodles onto her plate and Mila choking back tears.
I can feel it. I am struggling against an Episode. I want to cry, too—to cry and collapse and scream. But I can’t. Not now.
I can’t eat, so I take a few sips of water.
Mila gives me a funny look, like she knows what’s happening inside my mind and she’s daring me to try to stir it all up again.
Finally, my father pulls out a stuffed lion he brought back for Mila from Singapore, and Mila is distracted and fine again. She jumps into his lap and she’s smiling and laughing and snuggling against him, her new toy in her arms.
I ask to be excused for a minute. I head into my room, where I collapse onto my bed. I breathe and breathe and breathe, slow and steady, like the doctors told me to. It works. My head settles and my bones turn solid once more.
I have to be okay tonight.
I have to.
For Mila.
She made a wish.
*
Mila doesn’t get to sleep until nearly midnight, what with our father’s return and the sugar rush from her three pieces of cake and the excitement of the fireworks. She begged my parents to take her up to the roof so she could see them better, and when I asked (politely, I thought) if I could stay downstairs by myself, my mom gave me a look of death. I acquiesced, quite unwillingly, and then all night, my father kept asking me, “Are you okay, Vivi?” And then Mila would prod me: “Why aren’t you smiling, Vivi? It’s my birthday. Yours, too, tomorrow. And Daddy’s here. Please smile, Vivi. Why aren’t you okay?”
Now the city’s quiet, and Mila’s asleep. I’m alone in my room, finally.
I shut off the lights and crawl under my covers.
I let the day rush over me.
I try to make the tears come, and to let myself cry, but I can’t scream into the pillow like I want, I can’t sob like I want, or they’ll all come running in here asking if I’m okay.
I desperately want to text Sammie.
I desperately want to run upstairs to her room.
I miss her so much.
My father knocks at my door. “Viviana? Can I come in?”
I catch my breath and hold it. The door’s locked. If I am quiet enough, he’ll think I’m asleep and leave me alone.
“Viviana?”
I hold my breath.
“Let me in, please.”
No. Go away.
“Your mother and I have to tell you something, before tomorrow. Before Mila wakes up.”
Leave me alone.
“We need to talk. An honest talk.”
He hooks me. I want an honest talk.
I let out my breath and open the door.
“Are you okay?”
“Would you please stop asking me that? I think the answer’s pretty obvious.”
“Fair enough,” he says. He pushes his glasses up on his face and looks away from me.
I’m making him nervous.
Good.
“Come in the living room for a few minutes?”
I follow him. My mom’s sitting on the couch, a pillow held against her chest. My dad sits down next to her, and she places her head against his shoulder.
“So you guys are back together now? No divorce?”
My mom lifts her head. “Please, Viviana, lower your voice. Mila—”
My father pats the couch next to him. “Please come sit down here.”
I ignore his request and lean on the armrest of the recliner instead.
“What’s going on?”
He puts his arms around my mom, but instead of softening into him, she stiffens. “We are trying to work things out,” he says.
“Why couldn’t we have had this conversation with Mila?”
“Because we figured you might have questions,” my mom says. “Questions about what’s happened that maybe we couldn’t answer in front of Mila.”
I do have questions. So many questions. He said we were going to have an honest talk, and now’s my chance to lay all my cards on the table.
But I don’t know where to start.
“So that means you’re here now?” I sputter out. “For good?”
“No,” he says. “Only for a few weeks. And then I’m back to Singapore. But only for a month this time.”
“I thought you were trying to work things out.”
“I still have a job.”
“And we still have bills to pay,” my mom says.
“Does Mila know that?”
“Not yet.”
“But she thinks you’re here for good.”
My father nods. “We’ll tell her first thing tomorrow morning.”
I want to ask all my questions. They run through my head. Do you know about her, Mama? Are you done sleeping around, Dad? Who is this Paige, this other woman in your life? Why are we everything to you now? Why weren’t we everything to you before? How am I supposed to trust you?