Chapter 19
Hanna
Iwake up on Tuesday morning in my own bed alone, because I didn’t go to Ty’s last night. I made that call last night on the back stairs of my brother's apartment, and I don't regret the call, but I miss him anyway.
The light comes through the blinds sideways the way it does when the sun has come up without asking.
I lie on my back, look at my ceiling, and run the sentence one more time.
Cal. I love him. I've loved him since the academy. I'm not sorry about that. I'm sorry about the ten years of lying to you. I'm not leaving him again, and I'm not leaving here again, and I'd like to be your sister while I do it. Please, Cal.
That's the sentence.
I've had it since four-fifteen this morning.
I've written it and erased it and written it again, and I've finally put it on a sticky note I won't take with me because that would be absurd, but which I'll reread six more times before I leave, because I'm a woman who's about to go to her brother's apartment and tell him the truest thing she knows without opening with a joke, and I've never done that, and I need the sentence on paper somewhere in the building so that when my mouth betrays me I can remember what I meant to say.
I tell my mother first.
"I'm going to go over there. Alone."
"I know." She doesn't argue.
"He's going to — "
"Hanna. Stop listing what he's going to do. He's going to do what he's going to do. You're going to go, and you're going to say what you have to say, and whatever he does, you'll let him do it, because he's earned the right to do it."
"I — "
"And you'll stay, Hanna."
"I will."
"You won't leave. You won't get in the car. You won't drive anywhere."
"I won't."
"Good."
"Mom — I’ll come home after. When it's done."
"Hanna." Her voice is warm. "I'll have soup on."
"Thanks, Mom."
"I love you, honey."
"Love you too."
I drive the six blocks to Cal's. I park out front, take the front stairs — the squeaky ones — because Cal isn't supposed to know I'm coming, and because the squeaky stairs are the stairs you take when you're done with any version of sneaking.
I knock, and he opens the door in sweats and a sling and one sock. His eye is a little puffy. He has, I note clinically, not slept. There's a ring of takeout cartons on the kitchen counter behind him.
"Hanna."
"Cal."
"Come in."
"Thanks."
He steps back. Doesn't hug me. Doesn't invite me to sit. Doesn't offer coffee. He closes the door, stands in the middle of his kitchen with his good arm crossed over his bad sling, and looks at me.
"Talk."
"Okay."
"I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to interrupt. I'm not going to finish your sentences or tell you what I'm feeling. You came over to say a thing. Say it."
"Okay."
I take a breath.
"I love him, Cal."
Cal doesn't move.
"I've loved him since the academy and in the second month — I kissed him. He didn't kiss me. I kissed him. And we were together for three months. And then I left him. And it was the worst thing I've ever done."
"Hanna."
"Yeah."
He shakes his head, "Keep going."
"I left him because I thought I couldn't be with him and be your sister.
I thought it was a thing I had to choose between.
Mom told me I was wrong about that, and I think she's right, I knew she was right even when I was nineteen, because I remember the moment I decided I was going to leave.
I remember thinking, 'I'm telling myself this is for Cal and it isn't for Cal, it's for me, because I'm scared.
' I was scared, Cal. Scared of losing you.
Scared of losing him. And I was too young to tell anyone that, too young to tell you, too stupid to know that fear was the thing — not Ty, not you, not the rules, not the academy policy.
The fear. So, I ran. I went to Portland.
I dated a series of men whose only job, I can see now, was to not be Ty.
I didn't do what I went there to do. I did the paramedic job, and I was good at it, but I was small, Cal.
A small version of myself for ten years.
I came home because I couldn't be small anymore.
Because Mom was sick. Because you were here.
Because Ty was here. Because I wanted to stop running.
And then I was home, and I was still running — into a linen closet, in my own kitchen, on the back stairs — but I wasn't leaving, and eventually the running has to stop because you run out of rooms."
"Hanna." He walks around the room and then looks back at me, all while trying to process what I’m telling him.
"I'm here to tell you that I love him. That I've loved him since I was nineteen.
That I'm not going to leave him again. That I'm not going to leave Copper Ridge again.
That I'm home. And that I'm sorry — specifically sorry — for the years of lying to you about it.
Not about loving him. I'm not sorry about loving him, but I am about lying to you.
About the years of dinners at Mom's table while you sat across from him and I was lying.
About the time you called me in Portland to tell me about your car accident and said you wanted to come visit me and I said no, because I was afraid I'd tell you.
About every time you've said 'I miss my sister,' because I've heard you say it and I know I made the version of me that was missing.
About every time you came home from the Watershed and wanted to call me and didn't because I was two states away and it was midnight here.
I'm sorry about Thanksgiving 2019. About your thirtieth birthday.
About the Labor Day you came out and I was a coward about it for three days and you went home.
I'm sorry about all of it, Cal, because you're — you're — "
"Keep going."
"You're the best of us. The best of our family.
You've been the best of us since Dad died and you went home every weekend for two years to stay at Mom’s because Mom couldn't be alone, and I saw you do that, Cal, and I've carried it with me, and I've never once not loved you, and I thought if I told you about Ty I'd lose you.
Turns out I was wrong about that the whole time.
But I believed it the whole time, and the believing is why I did what I did, and I'm sorry. "
"Sit down."
"I have one more thing."
"Hanna — "
"One more."
"Okay."
"I love Ty. I'm going to be with him. Whether or not you're speaking to me.
I'm not going to run from that anymore. I'm not going to be small anymore.
I'm going to be with him in our town, and in our family, and on our crew, and I'm going to do it in public.
I'd like you to be my brother while I do it.
If you can't be my brother while I do it, I'm still going to do it. I want you to know both things."
Cal doesn't say anything.
He sits down across from me. His good hand, on his knee, is shaking a little.
He pulls himself together — not dramatically, just by taking a breath and letting his hand calm down.
I've watched Cal do this my whole life. At our father's funeral.
The time he broke his arm in high school.
The specific, unflashy pulling-it-together Cal does.
He looks up.
"Did everyone know?"
"Mom knew."
"Of course, Mom knew. Did — did Derek know?"
"I think Derek had a bet running."
"Of course he did. Gemma?"
"Gemma knew."
"Micah?"
"Micah knew, Cal. Micah has known probably for weeks. Micah knew before some of the — "
"Everyone in town knew."
"I mean — "
"Hanna."
"Yeah."
"Did Big Jim know?"
"Cal."
"Did Big Jim know, Hanna?"
"Cal, I don't — "
"Big Jim knew."
"I think Big Jim has always known everything about everyone in this town. I don't think it's personal."
"Big Jim knew before me."
"Cal."
"Rodriguez?"
"Chief Rodriguez figured it out at the BBQ."
"Rodriguez has known for days and I've known for fourteen hours." He stares at me. "This is so embarrassing."
I start to laugh.
I don't mean to. It comes out of me the way something comes out of you when you've been holding your breath for weeks — a half-cry-half-laugh, ugly, the kind I've never made before.
Cal looks at me, and his face does the Cal thing where the anger is fighting with the brother, and the brother is winning for the first time, and his jaw loosens, and he lets out a breath.
"Don't laugh. I'm still mad."
"I know."
"I'm not done being mad."
"I know."
"I'm going to be mad for a long time." His eyes are wet — have been since he opened the door. "Hanna."
"Yeah."
"I love you."
"I know."
"I never stopped."
"I know."
"I would have loved you if you had told me at nineteen."
"I know that now."
"You were wrong."
"I know, Cal."
"You should've told me." He rubs his good hand over his face.
"But — I was also — I was a bad listener.
You were right that I was going to be angry.
You were right that it would've been hard.
I don't think you were right that I'd have cut him off.
But I think you were right that I was — that I wasn't a man you could tell back then.
I was a kid with a dead dad and a rage problem, and I'd have made it worse.
I don't know if I'd have cut him off. But I know I'd have made it worse. "
"Cal — "
"And you couldn't take that at nineteen.
So, you left." His voice cracks. "I'm not going to say you were right to leave.
Because it cost us ten years, Hanna. Ten years.
And that's a price I'm going to be mad about for a while.
But I see the math you did. I see it. I don't forgive it.
I get it. There's a difference. I'm working on the difference. "
I start crying.
Openly. In Cal's kitchen. In front of him. Without the jokes.
"Stop crying. If you cry I'm going to cry, and my shoulder is in a sling, and I can't wipe my face."
I laugh-cry harder. I reach across the table with a paper napkin and wipe my brother's face for him.
He looks at me. His eyes are still wet. His jaw, under my hand, is the jaw I used to pinch when we were kids.
"You're going to actually be with him?"
"Yes."
"Like — a relationship."
"Yes."
"Married," Cal says.
"Cal — "
"Eventually. Don't — don't — "
"Eventually."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"I said okay." He looks at his hands. "I'm going to be furious for a while. And then I'm going to need to — I don't know. I don't know yet. I need time."
"Okay."
"I'm not going to stop being his friend.
" He says it more to himself than to me.
"I'm going to punch him again. Definitely.
Probably multiple times. Over the next year.
When I think about specific moments — like Thanksgiving 2019, when I asked him about my sister and he said 'She seems good' — did he talk to you that fall? "
"No, Cal. We didn't talk. Not for ten years. Not once."
"Huh." A beat. "Okay. I'll only punch him a few times then."
"Cal."
"I'm kidding. I'm — I'm a little. I'm kidding."
"I can't tell."
"Neither can I."
I laugh. He laughs. Not a big laugh — small, ragged. But a laugh.
"Will you come home for dinner this week?"
He looks at me. "Yeah, but no Ty. Not yet."
“Okay, Cal. I get it.”
"Not Ty. I'll tell you when." He shifts in the sling. "I'm sorry I hit him."
"I'm not."
"Hanna."
"You needed to. He needed you to. We all needed you to. It was the right thing. Don't apologize for it. You earned that one."
"You're a weird sister."
"I know."
"You're my sister."
"I am."
A beat.
"Tell him I'm going to punch him again."
"Okay."
"Tell him — tell him it's not over. But tell him — " he takes a breath " — tell him he's still my best friend. Tell him I don't know what to do with that yet. But tell him."
"Okay."
"Okay."
"I love you."
"I love you too, now get out of my apartment." He looks at the door. "Go call him."
I don't say anything. I put my hand on his good shoulder and squeeze it, and he puts his hand over mine, and we sit there for one second, and then I pick up my coat and walk out through the squeaky front stairs.
On the sidewalk in front of Cal's place, on a Tuesday morning, sun coming over the roofline, I pull out my phone with hands that are — for the first time in twenty-four hours — steady.
I call Ty.
He answers on the first ring.
"Hanna."
"Hi."
"Hi."
"I told him."
"Okay."
"He's going to punch you again."
"Okay."
"He said you're still his best friend."
Ty doesn't say anything, but I hear his breath change.
"Ty."
"Yeah."
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"I'm going home. Mom’s making soup."
"Okay."
"I'll see you tonight."
"Okay, Hanna."
I hang up.
I walk down Linden Avenue in the sun and I don't feel, for the first time in my adult life, that I'm running away from something.
I'm walking toward the soup my mother has made me.
Toward my own life with my brother still loving me and seeing the man I love tonight.
Toward the work of becoming a person who stays.