Page 78 of Everything All at Once

“Sure, okay, but NOW what?” Margo argued. “I’m all alone now!”

“What are you talking about? I’m right here!”

“But you’ll be gone eventually, and so will Mom and Dad, and so will Grandpa, and so will everyone I’ve ever met! How am I supposed to do this by myself? How am I supposed to be alone?”

—fromAlvin Hatter and the House in the Middle of the Woods

18

Igot home from Aunt Helen’s house in time to intercept the mailman holding a package on our front porch. I signed for the delivery and took the box from him. It was addressed to Abe and the return address wasAngeles Magazine. I shifted the box in my arms and opened the front door, finding Abe and Amy watchingThe Nightmare Before Christmasin the living room.

“Hi,” I said from the doorway.

“It’s almost Halloween,” Amy answered.

“It’s May.”

“Almost Halloween,” Abe echoed.

“Okay,” I said, grabbing the remote off the coffee table and pausing the movie.

“Hey!” they said in unison.

I flicked the light switch on, and they both covered their eyes in mock pain. It was easy to see how they fit together,how they’d already been together for years. It was easy to see them as eighty-seven-year-old weirdos with matching rocking chairs, Abe on his four hundredth reread ofThe Fellowship of the Ring, and Amy with oversized headphones, trying to figure out how to turn on whatever new contraption we’ll have to listen to music.

I held up the box. “You got a package, dweeb.”

“Who’s it from?”

“Angeles Magazine.”

“Really?” he asked, looking up for the first time.

“Yeah. Why, what is it?”

“It’s a literary magazine,” he said, standing up and taking the box from me. He put it down on the coffee table and used my keys to open it. He removed four thick literary magazines from the box and put them on the couch. The covers saidAngeles. There was a picture of a palm-tree-lined road on the front and a girl lying in the middle of it, reading a book.

There was an envelope clipped to the top magazine.

It saidAbe—in handwriting I recognized instantly.

“Abe... what are those?” I asked.

“No way,” he said. He took the envelope off the magazine but didn’t open it right away; instead he picked up one of the copies and turned to the table of contents. Amy stood up to read over his shoulder and started squealing almost immediately, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

“What! What! What! What!” she said, a “what” for every bounce.

“What?” Abe asked, quieter, softer.

“What! What?” I said, grabbing another copy of the magazine from the couch. I opened it and found my brother’s name immediately, in the table of contents, under a section titled “New Voices.”

“I didn’t know you submitted it!” Amy said, still squealing, her voice a high-pitched shriek of pure joy.

“I didn’t,” Abe said. He finally tore his eyes off the page and looked at me. “Did you do this?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t even know what this is!”

“An essay!” Amy explained. “He wrote an essay, and it’s published!”