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Seventeen months after the vice president becomes the president and the old one leaves before they throw them out, their father's confirmed officially as the Navy Judge Advocate General and is promptly asked to relocate to DC, like it's a choice. Sarah and Tom are both fifteen; they'll only hit sixteen at the end of December.
"Aren't you going to miss Hawaii?" Sarah asks Tom, lying upside down on his bed and bored of looking at stills of the shark in Jaws on the pages of some magazine their father subscribes to for appearances but never reads. She's eye to eye with a stack of boxes Tom's got next to the paneled sliding doors of his closet. They're labeled Books, Plane Models, and Underwear. When he doesn't answer, she sits up—it's kind of dizzying, all the blood rushing back up into her head—then fixes a look at Tom. He's leaning back in his desk chair, which is turned to the bed, not the desk, chewing gum and reading The Catcher in the Rye. She's read it once, and couldn't bother re-reading it because of the ending, but Tom's copy is worn through and dog-eared. Her favorite book is Wuthering Heights, anyway.
"It's just a place," he says, not looking up.
"You love it here! I've seen you go swimming at the beach before the sun even comes up." She pauses to nudge the sole of his Converse, but he doesn't react.
Tom shrugs like it doesn't matter. "We're leaving next month. I'll find somewhere else to swim."
—
Their father, before they go, makes it very clear that they need to make a good impression in DC.
"It's different there," he says over the dinner table, over the last dinner they'll have in this house. "You'll be surrounded by politicians and their children up the block and going to your school. You'll have to make sure to be your best."
Sarah doesn't even know what that really means to the Admiral; when Tom had gotten the fastest swim time in his age group during the county meet finals in freshman year, the Admiral just told Tom to make sure to work harder next year so no one would come close to breaking his record. When Sarah had won a state-wide essay contest in seventh grade—Why The World Needs to Keep Working on Recycling, Sarah Kazansky, age 12 and three months—he'd just nodded and went back to the case he'd been working on, unbothered.
Tom nods. "Yes, sir." Then he goes back to eating.
Jesus, Sarah thinks, and tries not to grimace. She thinks Tom started that instead of calling the Admiral Dad—which she still does, for some reason, but only to his face—around the time he told Tom not to let anyone beat his swim time. Like some kind of delayed knee jerk reaction to being told not enough. Not enough.
"Okay," she says, because as much as she thinks the Admiral is stupid as hell sometimes, she doesn't rock the boat when he's watching. When he isn't is another story. "Fine. What's our school called again?"
The Admiral frowns, like he's going to say something about her tone, but Sarah looks at him straight on. Everyone—by which she means her mother's parents, who are both dead now—always said that she was a dead ringer for Rachel Kazansky, that the only difference was their eyes. Her eyes; Tom's eyes; the Admiral's eyes. She'd figured out pretty quickly at thirteen that it rattled the Admiral a little when Sarah looked at him right in the face like he was seeing a ghost. So she uses it. She uses it because he already doesn't give a damn, so why should she care?
It works; the Admiral looks away. He doesn't tell her where they're going to school. Tom looks at her from the side. Sarah would say he almost looks jealous, but she knows him better than that.
—
Georgetown is nothing like Pearl Harbor. It's cold, and there's still snow on the ground. Townhouses line the streets, and they pass by more crown molding than Sarah's seen in her whole life. In California, where they'd lived before Hawaii, things had been sprawling; here, everything's tucked in and tidy, people talking on the sidewalks, slowing down to have conversations. Here, the sounds outside in the nighttime aren't the ocean rocking back and forth, the waves and seafoam rocking in on themselves; they're all unfamiliar, new all over.
—
"Tommy," Sarah says, one afternoon before school starts up again in the middle of January, after they've moved into that house in Georgetown; they're around more than their father is. "C'mon. Let's find you a place to swim."
Tom fixes his glasses. "It's twenty degrees outside." But—and Sarah considers it a win, grinning at him, because it seems like Tom's so rarely happy anymore—his mouth twitches, like he's trying not to smile. She's missed that so much.
"Indoor swimming pools exist!" she retorts, and it's not the same thing; they'd lived in Hawaii for four years, when their father was stationed at DSO Pacific, and Sarah remembers licking lemon popsicles with Tom when they were twelve and then him dashing into the ocean like it was a home, laughing and laughing. A home that's more home than this house; it's not the same, but it's better than nothing.
They end up going through at least three nearby rec centers, because Tom's picky as hell and Sarah ends up taking up a lot of time making fun of him, but it's good. It's good. Or—it's better, at least. It's worth the dressing down they get when they come home to find their father there, an hour early from Navy Yard (surprisingly, for once) and livid.
—
The Admiral is right about one thing. Almost every other kid at their new school—which had a stupidly fancy name that Sarah pretends not to know—is related by some degree to a senator or a congressperson or some similarly high-ranking military official. In their old school, it'd mostly been other military brats with similar backstories from all over the country, all clustered in Pearl Harbor for some reason or another. Tom had swam for the school team, and Sarah had joined theater, book club, and science club and resolutely ignored any sports after seeing how much of a disciple Tom became of swimming. Neither of them were ever exactly popular, but not exactly unknown either; they were liked enough by everyone else, and that got them through.
The boys here all want to go to law school or something, want to line the dorms of Harvard or Yale or West Point or Princeton or wherever their family legacies are. Some of the girls do too—at least the ones that don't look at Sarah weird that first day at that new school when she introduces herself and says she wants to be a doctor, wants to be Dr. Sarah Kazansky, MD and all—but most of the girls also whisper that it's not exactly smiled upon.
"What," Sarah asks Mandy Mulligan at lunch, whose father is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, "so we're just humoring ourselves? I meant it." She's stubborn; Tom is stubborn too, but in the way that makes him chip away at things until he gets what he wants.
"We all do, Sarah," Mandy says, putting away her compact and sounding both tired and like she thinks Sarah is so, so naive. She cocks her head at Sarah. "You been set up yet?"
Sarah stares at her, but won't let herself hear what Mandy's really saying. All that matters is that she makes it all the way to the end, and away, away, away. She's learned that, like Tom's learned to not be sentimental. "What?"
Mandy just raises her eyebrows at her. "It'll probably happen soon. Anyway, when your father introduces you to some senator's son at some dumb gala you'll probably hate, just smile and nod."
"As opposed to what," Sarah says and puts the knuckles of her hand to her chin, closing her eyes. As opposed to what, she thinks, but doesn't pursue the line of thought. Then she sighs.
—
Predictably, because Georgetown has the same discretion as the base at Pearl Harbor (note: none), the Admiral finds out about it from one of the parents—Deputy Attorney General So-and-So, whose kid is in one of her classes and whose father has a standing lunch with the Admiral on Saturdays. She doesn't really know the details.
It ends up going mostly like this because she hadn't meant for him to know, hadn't wanted him to know, because of course he wouldn't approve:
"You don't think I can do it," Sarah says, flat, because she doesn't lash out—won't lash out, "do you? God, why am I even asking? Of course you don't."
"I don't know why you should," the Admiral shoots back like he's trying to correct her. Like she's stupid. And maybe he thinks she is; he's barely ever impressed by Tom—straight A-student, brilliant, determined Tom—and there's never been any real room for her. What does he expect from her anyway?
"Why can't you make things easier for yourself?" he's saying, and what's easier? Actually—Sarah grew up around easier. There's certain expectations for her and Tom—who they'll be and what they'll do—and she knows that the Admiral sees those expectations as sacred as the UCMJ.
"Why can't I—because I want things. I do, you know." She won't raise her voice at him. She won't break.
"What you want and what you're supposed to do aren't the same thing," the Admiral says, and now—now, it's his stupid fucking lawyer voice, that voice that's three shades of patronizing and four shades of sharp, because the whole goddamn Navy knows that Ted Kazansky's the best suit they've got, except that he wears his stars like armor, uses his voice like a weapon, and will never wear a suit because he wears his dress blues like a zealot. He never says anything without some kind of ulterior motive, even to her and Tom, like he doesn't know how to say anything that's not a double-edged sword. And Sarah doesn't see anything in black and white, doesn't see things like that—it's why she can get mad at Tom for thinking he wants things that she wonders he actually wants, it's why she can hate him for playing in the Admiral's sandbox, but love him to bits anyway—but even she knows that the way that she and Tom have spent more time raising themselves than with him around is pretty screwed up.
She thinks of Mandy: you been set up yet? That's probably going to happen at this rate, because the Admiral doesn't know what the hell else to do other than fight with her or ignore her.
"I don't see you stopping Tom wanting to do whatever he wants," she mutters defiantly, even though it's pointless. The only thing Tom thinks he wants anymore is to go to Annapolis—it's basically an inevitability with their family lineage anyway, so it's acceptable—and she watches the Admiral go red with quiet, sharp anger.
"Don't you dare take that tone with me, Sarah Christine," he snaps. "You're fifteen years old. I'm just asking you to do what's best for yourself because you clearly don't know better. You're so irresponsible—for God's sake, announcing it all in class—"
"I'm sixteen!" Sarah says right back, voice all jagged, even though she's not shouting. "You forgot our birthday, sir." She says it like he'd said what he said to her: deadly. The Admiral's eyes narrow.
"You ungrateful little—"
She leaves before she can hear the rest of what he'll hurl at her. It'll hurt less, anyway.
—
Tom comes in after half an hour while she's angrily wiping at her eyes and playing a record loudly because it always helps a little when she's smarting with the hurt after an argument like that. If their father shows up or something, she thinks she'll probably tell him to go fuck himself, damn the consequences.
"Sassy," he says. He doesn't call her that much anymore unless things get like this.
"What," she mumbles. The bed dips; he's sat down.
"You know," he starts, and it sounds like it's difficult for him to get out. Figures. Tom never really tells her anything. "It’s easier to deal with him when you pretend that … he cares. Sort of."
Sarah sits up and stares at him, startled. Jesus Christ, she thinks, this is why he calls the Admiral sir.
"Are you kidding me?" she says, not sure whether to be furious or maybe just sad. "Tom, he's—he's barely here, and when he is, it's to say stuff like that. What the hell's wrong with you?"
Tom rubs his neck; he's upset—the furrow between his eyebrows is pinched.
"I never said it was a good idea; I said it made things easier," he mumbles. "Look. He wants us to be the best we can be, right? It has to fucking—fucking mean something, right?"
And that's Tom—logical, careful, putting all the pieces together in some way that should make sense to him. It's depressing.
"Tom," Sarah says, and now, she just feels bad for him. "Tommy, he wants that so we don't embarrass him. What'd you think that shitfit he pulled before was about?" She pauses, then studies him, looking at the furrow of his eyebrows, the frown he's sporting. "Do you even actually want to go to Annapolis? Or are you doing it because you think that's what'll finally make him look at you and pay attention?"
It's too sharp, probably—she'd never say something like that to Tom normally, not out loud, and she can see it in the hurt all over his face. She rubs her forehead. "Sorry. Sorry, I—look—"
"I'm sorry," Tom cuts in and sighs, then takes off his glasses to clean the lenses; it's something he does when he's nervous, or when he's unsure. "I shouldn't have said that. Before. And you're going to be a great doctor, Sarah. If you—it's—it's not—“
He pauses, then looks away like he's embarrassed. "He used to… you know. Say stuff like that to me. I know you think he doesn't, but—"
"He what?" Sarah's suddenly, incandescently angry, rising in her like fire.
Tom still won't look at her. "He usually did it when you were at out of the house or something back in Pearl Harbor. You get to him sometimes; I don't think he would've been able to say it if you were there." He rubs his neck again; his watch catches the light of her bedroom lamp. "He stopped, eventually."
"That doesn't mean he should've—Jesus, Tom. And you still—"
He shrugs. "It's easier," he says, which isn't really an answer at all.
—
In a weird way, Sarah understands where Tom’s coming from, even though it's so depressing and unbelievably backwards that she can't believe that he actually suggested it to her. She's long accepted that the Admiral really doesn't know what to do with them other than have them follow the paths they've already been put on, put them on the path that's expected of them. She's accepted that he cares more about what they look like on the outside than anything on the inside, accepted that the Admiral feels the same way about himself. He's carefully curated his public image to be witty, intelligent, dedicated Vice Admiral Edward Kazansky, who'll never give an inch to anyone but also won't hesitate to grab a beer with you when he wins and only pretends not to gloat about it. She sees Tom doing the same thing sometimes, when he stops laughing and when he starts becoming quiet and untouchable and cool at school. Sarah doesn't bother with that; she's only ever been who she was and can't imagine trying to become someone else. But Tom can, and it's why he calls the Admiral what he does. It's why he can pretend the Admiral gives a damn at all. Sometimes—but only sometimes—Sarah wishes she could too. It’d hurt less than the truth.
—
When Tom and Sarah finally leave Georgetown in the summer of 1977, they take the car they'd got themselves as a birthday present in rebellious defiance when they were seventeen and stuff it with all their worldly possessions—or the ones they want to keep the most, anyway. Sarah gets in the car first, checks the map, and pulls her hair loose from its braid, letting it tumble down her shoulders. Two minutes slide by. She frowns, then honks the car horn. No answer.
"Tom," she starts, raising her voice, "what are you—" She gets out to ask him what's taking him so long, but he's still looking at the house. He's fiddling with the watch, the one passed down from their father and then from their grandfather to him. Tom can't even look the Admiral in the eye anymore; if things go as they do, maybe he'll never have to again.
Sarah doesn't say anything to him because it wouldn't help. She thinks she should feel some sentiment for the place too, maybe—even a twisted kind, with all the memories that live inside it—but she feels nothing at all. Sarah picks at the sleeve of her cardigan; it's too hot to wear it in the dead heat of August, but it's their mother's, so she wears it anyway. Even if she doesn't remember much of her anymore, she can still recall the dishwater-gray sky the day of her funeral twelve years ago.
"Hey, Tom—"
Tom looks back at her, then slides up the bridge of his glasses. He'd told her last weekend, when they'd gotten out of dinner with their father and sipped capsizing milkshakes at some nearby 24/7 diner they'd picked at random, that he'd switch them out for contacts someday; maybe not this year, but soon. Something about turning over a new leaf, she wants to think, because Tom never says why he does anything, not really, and not to her—it's why she's become so fluent in his silences, in the ways he leaves things up to interpretation. That is, except when he tries to tell her things anyway.
"I'm fine," he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his khakis. "I'm fine."
"Look," Sarah starts, but he just shakes his head.
"Let's go," Tom says, voice clear but half-shaky, half-tired, then gets into the car.
In the car, she leans over and squeezes his hand, and after a moment, he squeezes back.