Page 65 of Thin Ice

"Then give him the bird," she said. She said it simply, like it was obvious.

"Not now," I said.

She looked at me. Waited.

"I don't want to just pull it off the tree and hand it to him."

My mom leaned against the counter. Her arms crossed. She was reading me the way she read everything, patient, letting me get to it.

"Okay," she said. "You'll know when."

"Yeah."

"But Liam."

"Yeah?"

"Don't wait too long. That boy needs to know people are giving things to him instead of taking them away." She picked up the knife and went back to the pie. "Bring the plates."

Chapter 18: Alex

They went into the kitchen for the pie, and I was alone in the living room for the first time.

The stocking stuff was spread out on the couch beside me. A toothbrush. Peanut M&Ms. Wool socks. ChapStick. A dollar-store sock with ALEX in Sharpie. I ran my thumb over the letters. Her handwriting. Steady, slanted slightly left.

My phone was on the cushion. Face-down. I hadn't looked at it all morning. I'd felt it buzz twice during the stocking and I'd ignored it because this was Christmas morning in Liam's house and I wasn't going to let anything outside this room touch it.

I picked it up.

Three notifications.

The first was from my bank. Account alert. I opened it and the number on the screen was zero. Not low. Zero. The checking account my parents had set up when I was sixteen, the one where my monthly allowance was deposited, the one I'd used for gas and food and everything. Zeroed out. Frozen.

A line at the bottom: Contact your account administrator for details.

My account administrator was my father.

The second was an email from Kingswell's bursar's office. Subject line: SPRING REGISTRATION — HOLD. I opened it. Dear Alexander Harrington: Your spring semester registration has been placed on administrative hold due to an outstanding balance. Tuition payment for the spring term has not been received. Please contact the bursar's office to discuss payment options before January 15.

Not received. Because nobody was sending it. Because the man who'd been sending it had decided his son wasn't worth the invoice.

The third was from a name I didn't recognize. An attorney. Re: Harrington Family Trust — Notice of Beneficiary Status Change. I didn't open it. I didn't need to. I knew what it said. The same thing my father had said in the study two days ago in his termination-letter voice.

You are no longer a part of this family in any way that is relevant to me.

I'd known it was coming. I'd known since I walked out the door. But knowing it was coming and seeing the numbers on a screen were different things. The disowning in the study had been emotional. Loud. Two men shouting across a desk. This was quiet. My father hadn't shouted at the bank. He'd just made a phone call, and my life had a zero in it.

I put the phone face-down on the cushion.

I couldn't afford to go back to school. The thought arrived flat. No drama. Just arithmetic. Tuition, room, board. Tens of thousands of dollars I didn't have and couldn't earn at a marina in December. My father had cut the floor out, and I was standing on nothing.

In the kitchen, I could hear Liam and his mom talking. Low voices. The sound of a knife on a plate. A cabinet opening and closing.

I pressed my palms into my eyes for three seconds. Breathed.

Not today. Not with the stocking next to you and her coffee in your hands.

I wiped my face. Sat up straight. Put the phone in my pocket where I couldn't see the screen.