Chapter 38
38
Kieran
The bowl clattered to the ground, miraculously staying upright as it wobbled, though a bit of the lemon curd flung from the side and landed on the wall. I bent to silence the still-spinning bowl and then snapped a towel from off the counter but noticed both the silence in the room and my sister’s stare on me. “What? It slipped.”
“Were you…” She wiped her hands down the front of her apron and narrowed her eyes in my direction. “Humming?”
“No,” I said, returning to the sweet scent of the lemon filling. We were making samples for a possible catering job for an event at the zoo, and I’d made extra to take to Sybil, but I was adding a little more lemon zest to hers, plus fresh blueberries. The dark blue fruit made a pleasant mosaic in the yellow. “I don’t hum.”
“You usually don’t,” she said, sliding the tray she was holding back into place. “It’s been years since I’ve heard you do it. But you were just humming a Taylor Swift song.”
I rolled my eyes and looked back into the bowl before she could inspect my face any longer. It was a Taylor Swift song, but that was only because Sybil had come over the night before and she’d made me watch the video with her multiple times, cuddled together on my small childhood bed. “It was just stuck in my head,” I said without looking over my shoulder.
“Uh-huh.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned a hip against the counter.
I kept folding in the blueberries. “It’s catchy.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It feels like you want to say something.” I began spooning the mixture into a piping bag, and I could already imagine the noises Sybil would make eating one of these donuts. She called them yummy noises, and I was getting bad at pretending to be annoyed, because they were really similar to the sounds she’d made once the music video was over, the ones she’d made into my pillow so we weren’t too loud. A warm flush ran up my neck, and I cleared my throat, throwing my sister another glance. “Go ahead.”
“About how you’re humming and distracted while making Sybil special donuts using Grandma’s family recipe? Why would I say anything about that?”
I gently compressed the piping bag and made a grab for the extra donuts I’d set aside. “She likes lemon curd. What’s the harm?”
Lila laughed and crossed one leg over the other. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” she said. “I like you two together.”
“We’re not together,” I reminded her, pressing the tip of the piping bag into the donut. “It’s still fake, but she’s nice and I want to do something…nice for her.”
“I can guess the kinds of nice things you want to do for her,” Lila said, jumping out of the way before I could snap her with the dish towel in my hand. “Hey!” she said with another laugh, returning to the sink to finish washing up. “I’m not even teasing you about getting paid for it. Give me some credit. I’m just saying…you seem happy.”
I set the first donut aside and started filling the next. “I am,” I said finally, once I’d picked up the third to fill.
“That’s a good thing,” Lila said over the sound of the running water in the sink. “Enjoy it!”
I nodded to myself, filling two more donuts as we worked in silence until she shut off the water.
“Are you worried about the money part?” She leaned a hip against the counter again and began constructing a box. “Because I was just kidding.”
“I know,” I said, that now-familiar creeping sensation at the base of my spine.
“And I’d love to say forget the money and just date her for real, but it would be a bad decision to give up on being able to get out of debt,” she added, the sound of the cardboard flaps fitting into place punctuating her sentence. “Granddad’s medical bills are paid and the shop is in good shape.”
“Yeah, I know.” The lemon dribbled down the side of the donut, and I caught it with my finger before setting the pastry next to the others. “It’s amazing.”
“And you used the rest of the money Sybil gave you to pay your outstanding bill for school?” Lila began setting the donuts in the box, angling them just so with the hints of yellow and purple peeking out for each one. She paused for a moment. “You paid that, too, right?”
I’d had the phone in my hands and the number typed in a hundred times over the last two weeks to call the admissions office to confirm my reentry. I’d stand in my room, finger hovering over the call button, and Sybil would text or call or show up or laugh, or she wouldn’t do anything but I’d imagine the warmth of her smile, and I’d back out of the call. “I’ve got another week,” I said, wiping down the counter.
“Yeah, but why wait when you can take care of it now?”
“If the store keeps doing well, maybe I don’t have to use her money for that, is all.”
Lila handed me the box. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t you use the money? You’re still going, right?”
I scraped the last of the sticky, blueberry-dotted mess into the trash, eager to escape her inspection. “Of course,” I said, finishing the job and placing the bowl in the sink. “I mean, I don’t have a choice. I’m already two years into the program. It’s what I’ve always worked for.”
“You have a choice,” she said from behind me. “But you’ve always been certain about being a doctor. Is this about going back or leaving her?”
“I just haven’t gotten around to making the call yet.” I let the water run into the bowl, using the sprayer to clear the edges of the lemon residue. “It’s not like she and I could really work,” I reasoned, washing the bowl. “That would just be too…”
Lila handed me a dry dish towel. “Lucky?”
I nudged her out of the way, set the bowl down, and tugged the apron over my head. “Unrealistic. I still don’t believe in luck.”
“See, I think you don’t trust when good things happen.”
“Don’t we have reason not to?”
Lila looked at her watch, something she’d been doing all afternoon. “Maybe, but that’s toxic thinking, and it can keep you from being happy.”
“I’m sorry, didn’t we grow up with the same parent?” I checked my own watch, and we had plenty of time to get to the meeting. “It’s smart to be cautious.”
“Cautious, sure, but you’re humming, you’re running off to Tom’s cabin. Hell, you’re singing karaoke and you’re putting off getting back to school. Plus you’re…” She motioned to my face with both hands. “You’re smiling, a lot. Maybe you haven’t called because you’re not sure you want to leave.”
Chad yelled for Lila from the front of the shop, and she gave me a pointed look before going out to answer his question. I pulled my phone from my pocket. I’d dialed the number for Admissions so many times, I had it memorized. Lila had it partially right. I didn’t want to walk away from Sybil. We only had a little over a week left in our arrangement, and every time I imagined her not being in my daily life anymore, my shoulders tensed and the world seemed heavier. But she’d asked me at the cabin if I’d still want to be a doctor if things had been different, if I didn’t have to fix things, and the question had nagged me ever since because I didn’t know anymore. I’d been racked with indecision about the thing I’d been clear on my whole life. I needed time to get my head on straight, but time was running out.
My gaze kept snagging on the box of donuts I’d made to take to her after the meeting. They were sweet and kind of messy but in the best way, so they were basically just like her. If I didn’t go back to school, I had no idea what I would do, but if I went back, she and I would be truly done.
I heard Lila helping a customer through the swinging door and eyed the box on the counter. I only had a few minutes, but I hit the call button and walked back into the office. The auto- response clicked on, informing me the office was closed and I could leave a message or call back during business hours. When the beep sounded, I decided to stay on the line so that maybe I could get more time to make my decision, to defer for another year. I’d been lucky lately, and maybe luck would be on my side if I gave it a chance.
If I had more time, I could figure it all out and try something real with Sybil. As the robotic voice walked through the options, I settled in the chair and hummed the same song to myself until I could click zero to leave a message.
“My name is Kieran Anderson, and I need to speak with someone about my offer of reentry for fall. I’d like to know my options for deferring it.”