The house felt too quiet after the Bernards said their goodbyes, as if all the noise had walked out the door with them.
Adam had gone upstairs almost immediately, and Aaron disappeared into his own room not long after.
A few minutes later, Lena heard another door open, then footsteps, Aaron's, that stopped farther down the hall.
Adam's door opened and closed.
Lena sat on the couch beside Sarah and pretended not to notice.
Sarah had put on one of her dramas, but she wasn't really watching it. The television played brightly across the dimmed living room while she sat curled beneath a blanket, eyes fixed somewhere near the screen.
Lena had tried talking to her twice. The first time, Sarah answered with a distracted hum, the second time, she smiled and said she was fine, which meant she absolutely wasn't.
Lena understood the message. To leave her alone for a little while. So she did.
Outside the back windows, Grigori stood at the porch railing, the tip of his cigarette glowing orange in the porch light. He didn't do that often anymore. Only when something bothered him enough that coffee couldn't handle it.
Lena looked away. She could go upstairs and turn on her computer, browse until she found something stupid enough to distract her, or play something. Message Kendra. Do literally anything other than sit here thinking. But none of it felt right. Dad was leaving again in 2 days. How long this time?
The old assignments blurred together: weeks, months, promised return dates that moved. Sometimes Grigori came home for a few days and left again. Sometimes Sarah got a call and spent the evening pretending she wasn't disappointed.
Lena hated those calls, mostly because she wasn't allowed to even speak in them. At the moment, she hated the government, the post office, and mail in general.
Her eyes drifted toward the stairs. Adam's reaction at dinner bothered her almost as much as Dad leaving. Neither he nor Aaron had argued or asked Grigori to stay. They'd just asked practical questions, as if he'd announced a dentist appointment. Lena told herself that was simply how they were, but it didn't make her feel any better.
Adam had always gotten more time with Dad anyway. They'd be camping, fishing, or doing survival weekends that stretched to 2 or 3 days and sometimes swallowed an entire school break. After Aaron joined the family, he went too.
Never her, though.
She'd once dismissed them as boy things. Dirty mud, canned food, knots, whatever else Grigori taught out there. Tonight, all those years of trips she'd never been part of irritated her, she'd missed so much and Adam still sounded like none of it mattered.
Sarah remained lost in the television. Outside, Grigori's cigarette was still glowing on the porch. Lena stood up, telling herself she was only going upstairs.
Aaron's room was empty, so she went on to Adam's. His door was closed, and voices murmured behind it.
Lena hesitated, but curiosity won. She leaned closer.
She heard Aaron speak first.
"How long do you think he's gonna be out?"
Lena went still, one hand flat against the wall.
"I don't know," Adam said, flat and controlled, like he was answering a question about the weather.
Something hot twisted in her chest.
Aaron started again. "If it's another long one-"
A floorboard creaked under Lena's foot as she shifted closer, and the voices cut off. She stopped breathing.
Then Adam said, "So... How was your day?"
"My day?" Aaron sounded baffled.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I'm asking."
Aaron took a moment. "Good."
"Good."
Lena stared at the door.
Aaron tried next. "How was your day?"
"You know how my day was."
"Right."
The silence stretched long enough that Lena could hear the television murmuring downstairs. Then Aaron said, with painful deliberation, "Schooool."
"Yes."
"How is... school?"
Adam took several seconds. "Educational."
Lena covered her mouth, trying to stifle an angry laugh.
"That's good," Aaron said.
"I think that's generally the purpose."
The next silence was worse. Adam apparently decided to help. "Movies?"
"There was one with the shark." Aaron supplied.
"That describes several movies."
"The big shark."
"That barely narrows it down."
Lena bit the inside of her cheek. Underneath the stupidity, the point was obvious. The instant the floorboard creaked, the real conversation had stopped.
She reached for the handle.
Inside, Aaron dropped his voice, not nearly far enough. "Think she heard anything?"
Adam answered, "The school discussion was pretty detailed."
"Good."
"You contributed a lot."
"Thanks."
"That wasn't praise, Aaron."
Lena's face heated. Then Adam raised his voice.
"Lena."
She froze, hand on the handle.
"Go away."
Her mouth dropped open. Aaron laughed on the other side of the door. Lena yanked it open.
Both boys were exactly where she'd expected them to be. Aaron sat backward in Adam's desk chair, arms folded across the top of it, and Adam sat on the edge of the bed. Neither looked remotely surprised. Lena pointed at them.
"You knew I was there!"
"Yes," Adam said.
"How?"
Adam glanced toward the hallway. "The floorboard."
Aaron added, "And you breathe loud when you're trying not to breathe loud."
"I do not."
"You do," Aaron chuckled, clutching his stomach.
Lena glared at him. Aaron shrugged. Adam's expression stayed neutral, which annoyed her more.
"What were you talking about?"
"Dad."
"I know that. I mean before the school thing."
Aaron nodded thoughtfully. "It is educational."
Lena turned on him. "I swear to God-"
"We were wondering how long Dad might be gone," Adam said.
"That's it?"
"Pretty much."
Lena stared at him, and Adam stared back. He had always been impossible to read, and most days she could tolerate it, but tonight she couldn't.
"You don't care."
The words came out sharper than she intended. Adam's expression shifted, barely, but she saw it.
"What?"
"Dad leaves in 2 days and you don't care."
Aaron's amusement disappeared.
Adam stood up, but his expression didn't change at all. "Of course I care."
"You don't act like it."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know!?" She threw her arms up. "Something."
Adam frowned. "That's not an answer."
"Oh, like you had one?" She dropped her voice into a flat imitation of his. "'I don't know.'"
He looked at her for a long moment. Lena hated that her eyes were starting to burn again. Aaron had gone very still in the desk chair, like he was hoping the furniture might swallow him.
"You just sit there," she said. "Every time he leaves, you just act like it's normal."
"It is normal."
The moment the words left his mouth, Adam seemed to regret them. Lena recoiled.
"Wow." She let out a short, humorless laugh.
"Lena-"
"He takes you everywhere. Every stupid trip, every weekend, all that time with him. And now he's leaving for God knows how long and you act like it doesn't matter."
Adam's jaw tightened.
"Do you even miss him?"
"Yes."
"Could've fooled me."
Adam looked away, which was unusual enough to stop her.
"Getting upset doesn't make him stay," he said.
Lena went quiet.
"When Dad says he's leaving, he's leaving. So I ask when. I ask how long. I figure out what changes."
That wasn't indifference, it was years of practice.
"That sounds horrible," Lena said.
"Maybe."
"Are you sad?"
Adam hesitated. "Yes, of course I am."
She hadn't expected him to just say it.
He sat back down on the bed. "I just don't know what you want me to do about it."
Some of the fight went out of her shoulders. She looked at Aaron. "And you?"
Aaron considered the question. "I don't like it when he leaves."
"That might literally be the most emotional thing you've ever said."
"It's not..." Aaron looked away.
Despite herself, Lena almost smiled. Then she remembered the floorboard and the shark movie, and the smile went away.
"You're still hiding something."
Adam's expression immediately flattened. "No."
"That was too fast."
Aaron looked between them. "I thought the school conversation was convincing."
Lena stared at him.
Adam sighed. Lena looked from one of them to the other and knew she wasn't getting anything else out of them tonight, but something had changed.
Before, their strange behavior had been easy to dismiss. Adam was weird. Aaron was weirder. Dad took them camping. Boys had secrets, that's for sure.
Tonight, for the first time, Lena had watched the secrecy happen.
One second they had been talking normally; the next they were discussing school and shark movies like two aliens trying to impersonate human teenagers. There was something underneath their family, and she had no idea what it was.
Lena spent the rest of the evening at her computer, playing a survival game with Kendra while they talked over their headsets.
"That sucks, Lena," Kendra said. "Please tell me nobody's screaming over it."
Lena scoffed. "No. We don't really do screaming. I've never even heard Dad yell at any of us."
The line went quiet for a second. Then Kendra said, "Must be nice," in a voice that was suddenly flatter than usual.
Lena's hand stilled over the mouse. "Are your parents fighting again?"
"Yeah. Money stuff."
"That bad?"
"The usual. They've been going at it all night."
"Ugh, Kendra. I'm sorry."
"Can I come over tomorrow if they're still at it?"
Lena frowned. "You know you don't have to ask."
"I know. I'm being polite."
"That's new."
Kendra made an offended noise through the headset, and then, before Lena could ask anything else, her voice went bright and quick again. "Okay, new topic. Does Adam play this?"
Lena narrowed her eyes at the screen. "Why?"
"No reason."
"Kendra..."
"What?"
"He's my brother."
"I didn't say anything!"
"You were about to. I know that tone."
"I was going to say he got interesting this week."
"Because he punched Carter?"
"Because apparently your quiet little brother can fold people."
Lena groaned and steered her character behind a tree. "Please never say that again."
Kendra laughed.
"Also, don't you already have a boyfriend?" Lena asked.
"Yeah. Mason."
"How's that going?"
Kendra was quiet for a second. "We're fighting."
"About what?"
"He says I cancel on him too much."
"Do you?"
"Sometimes."
"Kendra..." Lena said.
"What? If my parents are screaming at each other, I don't exactly feel like going on a date. Or doing... stuff."
Lena leaned back in her chair. "Does he know that?"
"Yeah. He thinks I should just come to his place instead."
"And you don't want to?"
"Sometimes I do. Sometimes I'd rather come to yours."
In the game, Kendra's character punched Lena's. Lena punched her back. Both girls laughed.
"You two are still okay, though?" Lena asked.
"I think so. Almost 2 months." Kendra sounded strangely proud of that.
"That might actually be a record for you."
"Shut up."
For a while, Lena forgot that her dad was leaving in 2 days.
By 10 PM, they called it a night. Lena had just dropped onto her bed when she heard light footsteps in the hallway. They didn't sound like Adam's or Aaron's.
Dad?
Adam's door opened.
Lena crept to her own door and pressed an ear against it. Grigori's voice came through the hallway, low and muffled.
"Get Aaron. Garage."
"Okay," Adam said.
The door closed again.
Lena stayed where she was. She wanted to follow. After tonight, she wanted to know what could possibly require Dad, Adam, and Aaron in the garage at 10 PM. But she remembered the floorboard, and Adam had already caught her once.
A moment later, footsteps moved toward the stairs. Whatever came next was for Dad, Adam, and Aaron. Not for her.