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Ryland Grace rubbed his face as the plan landed at the San Francisco Airport, temporarily pushing his glasses up his nose awkwardly, before he let them slide back onto his face properly. It had been a long travel day. Cornell University was an Ivy and a great place to work on his undergraduate degree, but it was sort of in the middle of nowhere. To catch his first plane in Albany, he had decided just to stay up all day so he could rent a car and drive from Ithaca to the New York State capital, leaving just after midnight. Then there was the terrifying flight from Albany to LaGuardia due to turbulence. After a two-hour layover in a hot and stuffy terminal, he was finally on a direct flight home.
Ryland remembered flying to Florida to visit grandparents back when he was a kid. It had been so different. Of course, he knew, that was before terrorists used 787s to fly into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and whatever the target Flight 93 was hijacked for. The world was different, and Ryland wasn’t sure it was for the better. Even in the most desolate parts of the Northeast, people were more diligent. You had to be aware so you could say something if you saw something. Back then, your family could meet you in the arrival terminal. These days, they were lucky to be able to wait in baggage claim. Ryland stood, and waited for passengers to stumble down the aisles, or grab their bags from the overhead bins. He felt like his soul had not yet arrived on the West Coast; he felt a bit untethered to reality.
He felt a bit like a failure. Harvard loomed on the East Coast, mocking him for not being good enough to get funding through their PhD program. Instead, it would be Stanford. Just as good, maybe better, but it still felt like returning home tail tucked beneath his legs.
He sighed as he finally was able to scoot into the aisle and pulled his yellow rain slicker on. It felt nice to stand up tall, and he took a moment to luxuriate in not having to sit or hunch over. He could feel his back expand now that it was not compressed. The flight attendant gave him a look that screamed to hurry up, so he grabbed his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and deplaned. It was a short walk that felt like it took forever to follow the hallways to baggage claim. He could sense his soul stubbornly pulling back on a tether, trying to pull himself back East.
With a sad shake of his head, he glanced up over his unruly golden bangs to see Colt and Mary waiting for him. Colt looked like Colt; he never really changed even though today his twin was wearing a pair of sensible black dress slacks and a black button up, more than a few of the top buttons left undone. Maybe he looked a little more adult.
But Mary, oh Mary, looked so very different. Sometime over the last five years, she had stopped dying her hair Dana Scully red and had let her natural soft brown hair grow out. She had pulled it back in a loose ponytail so some of her hair had fallen out. And her outfit was decidedly different – she was wearing a pair of light-wash men’s jeans, cuffed over her Doc Martins, with a white oxford shirt under a navy blazer with brass buttons. She looked almost preppy in a way Ryland couldn’t have imagined.
Colt dropped his sign with Ryland’s name on it and wrapped his brother in a big hug. Ryland could see Mary shake her head and bend over to pick up the posterboard even as Colt squeezed him and messed up his hair. When Colt finally let him come up for air, Ryland quickly patted his hair down and tried to straighten his raincoat and tartan flannel shirt. Mary stood there, waiting, and once she saw Ryland was free and had a moment, gave him a quick, chaste hug. He had tried to lean into it and hold Mary, but she quickly let him go and took a decisive step back.
“Hey, Ry, welcome home,” Colt said, resting his hand on Ryland’s shoulder.
“We’re really happy you’re back,” Mary said. “Come on, we’ll get you home.”
Ryland glanced around for a moment. “Where are Mom and Dad?”
“At school, silly. It’s just three in the afternoon here,” Colt offered, reminding Ryland of the time difference. “With it so close to graduation, they couldn’t get off. But Mary and I took the afternoon so we could be here for you. And we thought we’d bring you to the apartment so you could get some rest before Mary makes dinner.”
Ryland looked to Mary who only shrugged as she watched for the luggage to begin to arrive.
“You cook,” Ryland asked.
Before Mary could reply, Colt answered. “Yes! And she is the best cook. I don’t know why she doesn’t open a restaurant, because everything she makes is legitimately gourmet. What are we having tonight, Mary?”
Ryland watched Mary swallow a smile before she replied, “Nothing special. Just some butter chicken that’s been getting happy in the crockpot since this morning. When we get home, I’ll heat up the naan and make the rice.” She then made a pointed expression to be on the lookout for the luggage.
Finally, the whine of an alarm echoed through the room, and Mary sighed with visible relief as bags began making their way down the conveyor. Ryland slid up close to watch for his bright blue suitcase. When it came, Mary bent over and snatched it up before he could even reach the handles. She placed the suitcase on the ground, gently offering it to Ryland.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she said, spinning on her heel to navigate them towards the parking garage. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her blazer, she strode forward with quick, long steps. Even Colt had to rush to keep up.
To Ryland it seemed like Mary may have forgotten where she had left her car. The path she took was nonsensical, sometimes doubling back to another row of cars. Eventually, she stopped and opened the door to a cherry red Subaru Outback.
“Where did the purple Jetta go,” Ryland asked with a bit of alarm in his voice.
“She sold it to me,” Colt replied. “Remember? I sent you the email about it last year. I needed something to get to work, and Mary was looking for something bigger anyway.”
Colt helped Ryland put his bags in the back of the car while Mary got in the driver’s seat and turned on the car. There was an awkward moment when Colt slid past Ryland to take the passenger’s seat.
“Everyone buckled in,” Mary asked, using the rearview window to check in with Ryland, who nodded. “Great.” She tossed her black binder of CDs onto Colt’s lap. “Pick something.”
Colt placed a CD into the reader and suddenly the car was filled with a cacophony of sound.
“What the hell is this,” Ryland shouted over the music.
“The Gray Album,” Colt shouted back.
“And what the fuck is that?”
“This guy, DJ DangerMouse, remixed Jay-Z’s album with The Beatles. It’s a tribute and it’s an actual riot. I love it,” Mary replied as she turned onto the highway. “Just listen. It’s good.”
Ryland sat in silence while he waited for his soul to begin its long journey west. He pressed his head against the backseat window, looking up at all the cars passing by, people going about their lives. He absolutely hated everything about the way the fog hugged the interstate. This was not where he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be in Cambridge, sipping on coffee at a cafe with his intellectual equals while they discussed scientific studies. Ryland was convinced being stuck back in San Franscico, listening to this noise, was absolute Hell on Earth. And why did Mary let Colt pick the music, he wondered. That had been his important job once. Even if he had to come back to San Francisco, his place was up front managing the music for the trip.
With a sigh, Ryland lifted his head as the car slowed and pulled into an actual driveway. He stepped out of the car to gaze up a well-maintained brownstone. Window boxes with purple flowered plants adorned the first floor. There was a small maple tree planted between the sidewalk and the road, ideally casting some shade on the front steps. Everything looked very old but well cared for. It was, he realized, the exact sort of place a young person would want to begin a life and the thoughts of Mary and Colt starting their lives together made him want to scream or vomit.
The two beckoned him inside, practically pushing him through the front door of the first-floor apartment. He was stunned to find recycled dorm furniture make up most of the décor. What wasn’t re-used, obviously came from a thrift store. And yet, everything seemed to match in a somewhat elegant way, almost as if someone had put real thought into decorating the living room. It was the same with the small dining room attached to a tiny kitchen. Ryland took a moment to focus on Mary, as she pointed to a whiteboard filled with gold stickers.
“So, this is the chore board,” she said. “We each take on certain chores to keep the apartment nice and clean. We also take on financial obligations to ensure fairness. As you know, some of my youthful indiscretions resulted in some actual cash, which helped us buy this apartment. Because it’s in my name, I pay the mortgage. And because I tend to cook the most, I take care of the kitchen since it doesn’t make sense to have other people clean up my messes.”
Colt pointed to the board to show off his gold stars. “And I pay for the utilities and half of the groceries. I clean the common areas. If you do your chore, you get to place a gold star on the chart. At the end of the week, whoever has the most stars gets to choose what take out we get on Sunday. The person with the fewest stars needs to buy.”
Ryland rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. “This is so childish,” he said. “We’re adults.”
Mary nodded her head in agreement. “Yes, I agree. You’d think adults would be able to do their chores without a friendly competition, but we just weren’t those adults. This was Mark’s idea. Mark lives out on the Bay but stays here sometimes and pays for the other half of groceries. He also helps with home repair and general beautification.”
She pointedly ignored Colt’s pleading expression and continued. “We know you are on a limited budget and that you do not want your parents’ help. Colt and I respect that, and we think it’s really admirable you’re doing this PhD thing without financial support. We think it’s fair that you chip in for any specific groceries you’d want on a given week and that you clean the bathroom once a week. We know you’ll be very busy with school, so we don’t want to get in the way of that, but we decided that if you live here, you need to contribute.”
Before Ryland could absorb, truly absorb his brother and the girl he loved had decided his contribution to the household was potty duty, he could feel his ears get warm at the mention of Mark. Who the fuck, he thought, was Mark?
“By cleaning the toilet,” Ryland asked.
Colt took a step between his twin and Mary. He gently raised his arms, as if getting ready to pull apart to fighting dogs.
“Look, the bathroom is the smallest room in the house, and we all clean up after we use it,” Colt said gently. “It won’t be that bad, and if it really is, we can re-access. But we needed to make some decisions, and you wouldn’t return any of our phone calls or emails. We even tried MySpace. I know you’re a busy guy, but we tried to get your input.”
Ryland sighed and tugged his raincoat off. He placed it on a coat rack. “Sure, okay,” he said after a moment. Colt wasn’t wrong; he had ignored their attempts to reach out. Admitting that he was moving into their apartment had meant giving up on Harvard.
Colt smiled and opened a door off to the side of the dining room. “Here’s our bedroom! Why don’t you come on in and check it out. Maybe take a nap. You look beat, man.”
Ryland stepped into the bedroom, Colt hovering behind him, and let out a soft, sad sigh. The same furniture they had growing up had been brought here, including the bunkbed. I’m going to be a twenty-three-year-old man sleeping on a bunk bed, so basically a loser, he thought. Colt seemed to sense his brother was unhappy, so he brought his suitcase into the room and then stood up rather straight.
“Look, Ryland. I know this isn’t what you wanted. You wanted to go to Harvard. You stayed on the East Coast hoping another round of applications and interviews would get you admitted there. It didn’t happen. I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. But you can’t keep moping around. You got accepted to a great school. Stanford is excellent – mom said so and she would know – so it’s not like you aren’t going to live out your dream.”
Colt took a deep breath, and continued, “But you also need to realize that you can’t keep blowing us off. We wanted your input on the chore board, and you wouldn’t pick up the phone. You live here now. If you want to get new beds, we can do that. You just need to say something.”
“Okay,” Ryland said. “Who’s Mark?”
Colt sighed and leaned against the wall.
“Promise not to freak out,” he asked Ryland.
“Promise.”
“Mark is Mary’s boyfriend. They’ve been dating for about a year; she met him right after graduation,” Colt said softly. “But Mark is a great guy. I love the dude and he’s good for Mary.”
Ryland gave his brother a cool, calm look. “Oh, okay. Cool. Cool.” His fingered curled in tightly in his fists as his stomach promised to riot.
“Ryland, you promised not to freak out!”
“I am not freaking out,” Ryland replied.
“You are clenching your fists so hard I think you’re going to cut your skin and start bleeding,” Colt said.
Ryland slumped down on a chair and ran his hands through his hair. It was greasy from travel, and he couldn’t wait to take a shower. And then of course, clean up that shower because that was his job now.
“I just thought she’d wait for me to figure things out,” Ryland said and placed his head in his hands.
Colt stifled a laugh that Ryland decided to ignore. “Ry, my brother, Mary said she’d wait to figure out how you’d like to love her. She didn’t want to wait around to decide that you loved her. And honestly, I think that’s fair of her. You barely came home for holidays and breaks. You never called us back or answered email. Mary’s friend request on MySpace sat in your inbox for over a week before you accepted. For someone who loves someone else, you really didn’t show it.”
“So, I guess you got to fuck her,” Ryland said bitterly and immediately regretted it.
Colt shook his head and stood up straighter again. “No, we never did that. I wouldn’t do that to my brother, even if he was being an asshole. But you didn’t get to see Mary kill at school. You didn’t see her shine in her job. And she found someone who loved her and literally worships the ground she walks on. Ry, you didn’t see that woman thrive.”
Ryland snorted, “Of course she killed at school. She went to community college and then a state commuter school.”
Colt sighed sadly. “Not everyone has a mother who is a guidance counselor, Ryland. She went with what made sense for her. But she’s got a great job. She works for an non-profit that coordinates with the county public health department. She finds people who have HIV or AIDS and gets them paired up with those new drugs. Mary’s out there saving lives, Ry.”
Ryland could feel his brother literally look down on him. He pressed his face harder into his hands. This was not the homecoming he’d imagined. He hadn’t wanted a homecoming in the first place.
“Hey, why don’t you get some sleep? We’ve got some time before dinner, and you’re exhausted. Clearly the trip home has you out of sorts. Take a nap, and we’ll celebrate you being home,” Colt said, giving him a firm pat on the shoulder before leaving the bedroom.
Ryland propelled himself off the chair and into the lower bunk bed, kicking off his chucks before curling up tightly as if he could crawl inside himself. Clenching his eyes shut, he tried to will his soul westward. Come home, he thought, we don’t belong there. After a moment, he pulled the blanket up over his head and let himself cry like the failure he thought he was.
*
A few hours later, he felt the warm and oddly reassuring hand of his twin gently shake his shoulder. Ryland pulled the blanket down from off his head to see Colt eagerly smile at him. He felt the urge to pull the blanket back up over his head and just spend the entire night asleep. If Colt had noticed his eyes were red and puffy from crying, he didn’t comment and Ryland felt a moment of appreciation for it. And then he felt a pang of anger that his twin didn’t notice how much he was hurting. Their mother had always said that Colt was the more emotionally intelligent of the twins. Why couldn’t he just give his brother, his twin, some empathy, Ryland wondered.
“Hey there. Just wanted to let you know that dinner is about to be served. Mark brought a really nice bottle of wine to celebrate you being here,” Colt said in a soft and gentle voice. “You should at least meet him.”
Ryland rolled over to his side and heard Colt sigh softly before shuffling out of the bedroom. He could hear muffled voices from the common areas but couldn’t make out what was said. They were clearly whispering so he couldn’t hear them. It stung a bit, and while Ryland was tempted to just bury himself in self-pity and sorrow, he found himself getting out of bed and walking out of the bedroom. The talking immediately stopped as Mary and Colt gave him a sad look. And of course it was sad. He was still in his jeans and flannel shirt he had put on over 24 hours ago and his hair was sticking up in unflattering directions from travel and sleep. His soul reminded him it was almost 10:00 pm, even though here on the West Coast, it was barely 7:00 pm and a prime hour for dinner.
Ryland glared at the man opening a bottle of wine at the table set for four. The man paused and smiled. “I’m Mark,” he said and then scooted around the table to offer Ryland his hand. “Mary has told me so much about you and your high school adventures. About how kind your parents were to here. I’m just so thankful that I got to meet you.”
Ryland took a moment to examine Mark. He immediately hated the man’s stupid red hair and man-bun. He hated his slightly tanned skin and easy smile. His brown eyes that held a calm intelligence. Ryland hated the way he wore cargo pants with a thick chamois wool shirt under a fleece vest with a stupid Patagonia label stitched on the chest. He hated that the bottle of wine on the table probably cost a good twenty dollars and he hated that Mark had bought it for him. Ryland looked at the offered hand, and then back up at Mark’s face, trying to think of some stinger of a comment to put this stranger in his place.
And then Mary came to Mark’s side, wrapping an arm around the man’s waist. She had ditched her blazer and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. The rolled looks ridiculously large around her small elbows. Ryland wondered if this was Mark’s shirt she had borrowed or stolen.
“Mark leads the Citizen Scientists for the Baykeeper. He takes them out on the boat to do water sampling projects and scout for polluters. If you have time, I’m sure you could go out with them. They are always looking for volunteers with real science backgrounds,” Mary offered to break the tension.
“And you think I’d enjoy that,” Ryland asked cooly.
Colt once again stepped forward, arms out as if ready to pull them apart, and nodded his head towards the table. “Mary made butter chicken tonight and I’m starved. Can we please just eat,” he asked.
Mark gave Colt a knowing smile, and then moved back to the table, pouring wine into stemless glasses. Ryland glanced at the place settings and scowled. Everyone took their seats.
“None of the plates or serving dishes match,” he pointed out.
Colt chucked nervously. “Oh right, Mary found an estate sale with original Fiestaware from the 1950s. It’s not supposed to match. That’s the joy of the place settings. Everyone gets different colors. I usually use the red plates and orange bowls. Mary likes the purple and teal. But you can use any color at any time! Isn’t that fun?”
Ryland glared at his twin, upset that he had adopted this seemingly bohemian and poor lifestyle. At Harvard, things would have matched.
Mark gently cleared his throat before Ryland could respond and lifted his glass. “I’d like to propose a toast – to Ryland! We’re so excited that you are going to Stanford University and that you’ll be living here.”
Mary and Colt lifted their glasses and made a little chin-chin noise as they clinked their glasses together. Mark reached out with his glass, and Ryland made a big show of guzzling have the glass rather than salute Mark. He blinked with surprise when Mary began piling up their plates full of rice, naan, and the saucy goop he was sure was the so-called butter chicken. She placed his cobalt blue plate in front of him, and he was surprised to find the saffron orange sauce over white rice did look nice contrasted to the deep blue. He hated that he felt this way.
Colt took a bite and immediately shimmied in his seat, doing what he would call his Food Happy Dance, and expressed just how good everything tasted. Ryland cautiously took a bite and found himself surprised to find Mary was a very good cook and that he liked the rich spiced flavor of the chicken and sauce. He took another eager bite and found himself return ever so slightly to himself.
Mary gave him a soft, happy smile, and he felt like he was seventeen again and this cool girl across the street bothered to give him the time of day. Had he been her lapdog back then, he wondered, always crawling to her for affection. No, he reminded himself, he had loved her and she had loved him.
Except now she was with Mark. And Ryland had decided he hated Mark.
“So,” Ryland began mid-bite, “Where did you get your doctorate, Mark?”
Mark leaned back, like the questions was a punch to his gut. “I was enrolled in a program, but I just couldn’t cut it. So, I took the master’s degree instead. I’ll never be a research scientist, but I’m useful at communicating the importance of scientific research and teaching volunteers some best practices.” He poked at his chicken with some dejected motions before shrugging his shoulders abruptly as if to push something away.
“And you get to do something that really helps people,” Mary said to remind Mark of the good he was doing through his non-profit work. “Baykeeper works so hard to keep the bay clean so the wildlife can come back, and to keep it safe for people.” She gave Ryland a warning look to not pursue this thread any further.
Ryland decided to ignore Mary and shoveled a bite of rice into his mouth. He took a moment to chew and swallow before saying, “Well, you really aren’t a working scientist then. You’re just teaching retirees or whoever how to collect water. It’s not real science.”
Before Mark could say anything, Mary placed a hand on his elbow and shook her head.
“Ryland Jason Grace,” she said. “Be nice. Mark is doing important work. It might not be something that you value, but it’s something valuable and good and it helps people and the planet. Not everyone gets to live their dream, and you don’t need to rub it in their face.”
Ryland could feel the tears well up behind his eyes. He rubbed his nose because he could feel snot swell up there.
“You think this is living my dream?” He smacked his hand on the table. Mark jumped a bit. Ryland liked that. “I never wanted to come home. I never wanted to live here. I wanted to go to Harvard. I wanted to work with the best and the brightest. You wouldn’t understand, Mary, you don’t know what it’s like because you went to community college, which is essentially thirteenth grade.”
Colt slightly lifted himself, as if ready to move fast, but Mary stood up instead, picking up her plate and her glass.
“Fine Ryland, that’s fine to think that,” Mary said after a moment. She pursed her lips as if considering her next steps. “I’m going to take my meal outside. Ryland, please don’t follow me. I’m sorry for ruining dinner everyone.” She nodded her head to Colt and Mark and made her way outside.
Ryland watched Mark and Colt carefully. His twin was clearly ready to interrupt, but Mark shook his head.
“I’m going to head out with Mary,” Colt announced, and took his glass of wine with him. He had finished dinner quickly.
Ryland hung his head and began piling up the rice and sauce on his plate, hoping Mark would also leave him. To his shock, Mark simply pushed his plate out of the way slightly and took a long drink from his wine. Ryland glanced over at him, curious as to what he’d do next.
“Okay, Ryland,” Mark began. “I get it. I really do. You don’t like me. And honestly, I don’t think I blame you. I might even feel the same way if our situations were reversed.”
Ryland opened his mouth, as if to reply, but Mark cut him off.
“I’m going to say my peace here, Ryland. I hope that’s okay. Wait – no, I really don’t give a damn what you think. I think we agree that Mary is an extraordinary special woman. She is kind. She works hard. Her instincts are to help people, sometimes laws and norms be damned. I think she had a bright future, and I hope to God that she lets me be a part of that. I love her. I love her in ways I’ve never loved anyone. And I know what you mean to her. I’m not jealous of that. I never want to get in the way of that. But you went away for five years, Ryland, and you didn’t keep in touch. I know your type. I saw them all the time when I was a kid going to school so I could stay at home to help my sick mother. So, I could be her caregiver. Folks like you would go off to school and come home furious that we’d kept living our lives.”
He paused, considering what he had just said. “You can’t expect people to put their lives on hold for you Ryland. Mary wouldn’t go out with me for months, hoping you’d return her calls. And when you didn’t, she knew. So now you have a choice, Ryland. You are welcome to stay here. We really want you to live here. Mary and Colt were so excited to have you move in. I would love to be your friend. But if you can’t handle that, then you need to find something else. I won’t let you hurt Mary or Colt. They love you. You have people that love you. That’s wonderful, Ryland, don’t ruin it.”
“Is that it,” Ryland asked.
“Yeah, it is,” Mark said and stood up. “I’m going to go out there and enjoy the rest of the evening. Maybe take a beat and try to figure things out. I’m sure it’s been a long day. We can just brush this aside as a bad travel experience. You were hangry or jet lag got the best of you.”
Ryland waited for Mark to close the door behind him before he threw his plate against the wall. It didn’t even shatter and break. It just chipped as it connected with the wall and clattered to the floor.
“Fuck this shit,” Ryland muttered and pulled his flip phone out of his pocket.
“Mom,” he said when his mother answered. “Yeah, this isn’t going to work out. I want to come home.”
He sighed at his mother’s response. “No, I want to come home-home. Can you pick me up?”
When his mother said she’d be there in 45 minutes, he let his head thump against the table. His soul taunted him from across the country, the light feeling of being untethered made him feel a bit dizzy. What a fucking mess, he thought as he closed his eyes. Mary and Colt’s soft laughter from outside only made him feel worse.