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They clasp hands to stand from the table. Before heading to the stairs, Ana throws herself at Sergei.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t be there with you?” she asks her brother.
“I’m sure.”
Releasing Ana from their hug, Sergei turns his attention to the kitchen and catches my stare. If the large hockey player was in a less bothered state, he might have questioned the intensity of my curiosity. At the moment, he’s barely focused enough to apologize for leaving.
“It’s an emergency. I’m sorry for this abrupt change in plans. Maeve has offered to keep Ana here while I deal with something. I hope that’s alright with all of you.”
“Of course!” Grandpa says.
“We understand!” Mom reassures him.
There’s a bustle of action, but I’m lost in thought. There are so many reasons for me to be nicer to Ana. Aunt Maeve inviting them for Sunday dinner is a big deal. Ana is already more comfortable staying here than seeing her parents, at least through this crisis. She’s young and vulnerable.
I’m an asshole.
“I’ll check on her,” Mom announces, since no one is in a hurry to resume dinner.
My lungs seize and I’m consumed with worry. Is she still sobbing? Did she really mean it when she said she hated her parents? No family is perfect, but I can’t imagine dreading the people you’re meant to love.
I wonder, most of all, if she’ll come downstairs so I can apologize properly. When Mom returns without Ana, my disappointment is palpable.
“Is she OK?” Grandpa asks, his brows furrowed with concern.
“Maeve thinks Ana should stay here for the night,” Mom answers. “I agree. That girl is miserable.”
“You could have been nicer to her, Bryce,” Dad says.
“Yes. I’ll apologize.”
From that moment on, I resolve to answer anything she ever asks me.
I will be accommodating and helpful.
I will neither ogle nor scowl.
“Don’t worry about it, Bryce.” Grandpa pats my shoulder. “You’ll have your chance. She’s practically family now. We’ll be seeing a lot of them.”
The food in front of me is no longer appealing, so I take a sip of soda instead.
“Yeah, Bryce,” Uncle Matt says with a smirk. “She’s like the little sister you never had.”
Soda goes up my nose so fast, the bubbles are shrapnel in my brain.
Next chance I get, I’m kicking him hard under the table.
My room in Maeve and Sergei’s new house looks nothing like the one I left at Mom’s estate in Connecticut.
I was encouraged to make all the decorative choices. With the help of a designer, decisions had to be made on everything from wall colors to window coverings, area rugs to light fixtures.
In the end, I kept it simple. Showing the designer a picture of my old room that was decorated by Mother and dictated by the most pretentious trends imaginable, I ordered him to do anything except that.
I had only two distinct requests. A large L-shaped counter by the window so I can spread out materials like we do at robotics lab. And a modular bed design I adored when I last vacationed in Tokyo.
The bed is a multifunctional furniture piece with a lounging massage chair attached, all the tech features and power hookups along bedside shelves, and a memory foam headboard angled for ergonomic seating. Obviously, there’s also an adjustable mattress. While on it, I have access to a control panel that reconfigures a side table into various heights and angles. The whole thing is an engineering masterpiece.
So, here I am in a room Mother would hate, finishing my senior year in Columbus, Ohio where my brother plays for the professional hockey team.
