Page 7 of Little Pieces of Light

Years before, when I’d told my parents I wanted to go to RISD to be an interior designer, Mom sniffed like she’d smelled something rotten while Dad shot the dream dead.

He already had plans. I was to go to Brown, not for the education but for the pedigree, as if I were a show dog with good breeding.

I would marry someone like Tucker Hill—someone politically advantageous to the family empire—and inherit millions in return.

“It’s your duty, Emery,” Dad told me countless times. “We all have a role to play, and that is yours. To ensure the business thrives well into the future. You will be rewarded for it in the end.”

I wanted to tell him I’d rather be poor and struggling than live the life he planned for me, but I was too scared to step out of line. Not to mention, our family was already falling apart at the seams; if I didn’t try to hold us together, who would?

After practice, I drove my BMW S2 Coupe down Ridge Road to our family home.

I idled in the driveway, staring at the big house on the water.

Narragansett Bay lay behind it, our speedboat docked in the backyard.

(The yacht was at the marina, of course.) I should’ve felt grateful, but being rich wasn’t the same as being happy. This house was just a fancy prison.

I parked in the garage. Jack was already home—his beat-up Camaro sat outside, ready for a quick getaway. Dad’s black sedan was there too. He was home early, and I knew why.

I sighed. “Time to meet the warden.”

Inside, I passed through the enormous kitchen, which had bay views and was filled with the scents of Belinda’s dinner.

“Hello, Miss Emery,” she said, stirring a pot of something on the state-of-the-art gas stove. “How was your first day?”

“Fine,” I said, offering her a smile. A real smile. “Smells delicious.”

She beamed like a grandmother—she was pushing seventy and had been with us since Grant was a baby. Then her smile tightened. “Mr. Wallace would like to see you in his study right away.”

My stomach twisted. “I’m sure he does.”

“Will you please tell Mr. Jack?” Belinda asked. “I reminded him when he came in, but he muttered something and stormed off.”

Probably “Tell Dad to go to hell . ”

“I’ll get him.”

I moved through the house, past the dining room, two sitting rooms, and the formal living room, until I reached the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. No trace of Mom’s Chanel No. 5 in the air—she must be out at some late luncheon or charity meeting. Whichever one had more vodka.

Jack’s and my bedrooms were on the left wing. Very loud, very angry music thumped behind his door.

“Jack?” I knocked. “Dad wants to see us.”

I thought he’d ignore me—as usual—but the music went quiet, and Jack threw open the door. His T-shirt and jeans looked slept in and rumpled, his hair long and messy, and his blue eyes were ringed with dark circles.

“Ah yes, our first day of school tradition,” he sneered, crowding me away from his door so he could slip out and shut it behind him. “Let’s get this over with.”

We took the stairs down, Jack just ahead.

One year older than me and my total opposite: dark-haired to my blond, tall to my short, angry and rebellious to my obedient and dutiful.

Our parents pretended that Grant never existed, so grieving for him was out of the question.

I stuffed all my pain down, letting it out in little bits when I couldn’t take it anymore, but Jack wore his out in the open.

Our brother’s death had torn him apart so badly, he needed to repeat the sixth grade. I thought us both of in the same year would bring us closer together, but every day, Jack grew farther and farther away.

“I didn’t see you today,” I offered in a friendly tone. “I guess we don’t have any classes together.”

“Guess not,” he muttered.

“Too bad. That would’ve been kind of fun—”

“Can we not, Emery?” Jack snapped. “I’m not in the mood for your fucking chitchat.”

I recoiled at his cold snap. Moments like these reminded me that no matter how hard I tried to push it down, I couldn’t help but feel that when Grant died, I lost two brothers.

At Dad’s study, Jack knocked on the door but didn’t wait for a response before throwing it open and striding inside. Not for the first time, I wondered how he and I could share so much DNA when he was far braver than me. I followed him in and quietly shut the door behind me.

“You beckoned?” Jack drawled.

Two huge windows overlooking the bay bathed the study in amber twilight, but somehow the room still seemed dark.

Heavy drapes and floor-to-ceiling bookcases took up almost every wall.

A sitting area with a couch, table, and two chairs was in the center of the room, while my father sat behind a large mahogany desk. Behind him, a fireplace, now cold.

Dad didn’t look up from his desktop as we entered but typed in his slow, methodical way, his half-moon reading glasses perched at the end of his nose.

At nearly sixty, Grayson Wallace was thin and balding, the top of his head gleaming in the lamplight.

He wasn’t big or imposing; his intimidating aura came from within.

A prickly barbed force field surrounded him, and his eyes were like two shards of colorless glass that cut right through you.

Like now, as he looked up at my brother and me.

“Have a seat,” he said, indicating the leather chairs in front of his desk.

I sat and rested my backpack on my lap. Jack was slower, sliding into the chair and slouching down.

“Jack,” Dad stated, fingers poised on the keyboard. “Your class schedule, please.”

My brother remained silent for ten excruciating seconds, pretending to examine his fingernails. My skin itched, and I gripped my bag with white knuckles.

Dad peered over his glasses and repeated in the exact same tone, “Your schedule, please.”

“Oh, right.” Jack made a show of patting himself down and pulled out a crumpled ball of orange paper from the front pocket of his jeans. He tossed it onto the desk. “Here you go.”

Dad stared a moment before picking up the paper and unfolding it. He let out a small sigh through his nose.

“This is a tardy slip from today.” He placed it in the trash can under his desk. “So soon, Jack? It’s only the first day of school, but you’re already determined to be a fuckup.”

Our father said all this without raising his voice or changing his tone in the slightest. It was exactly that quiet inflexibility that made him so frightening to everyone on the planet. Even to Jack, though Jack was the only one who fought back.

“I stopped to get a coffee and a blowjob from a guy on the pier.” He held up his hands. “Guess I lost track of time.”

Dad stiffened. I held my breath.

I didn’t think Jack was telling the truth.

Or maybe he was; it would be a cold day in hell before he confided in me anything about his personal life.

But he liked saying or doing shocking things to get a rise out of our parents.

Like a few weeks ago, when he celebrated his nineteenth birthday by stealing a credit card from Mom’s purse and charging $2,800 worth of drinks at a gay club in Providence with a fake ID.

I thought Dad would kick him out of the house for sure—not for being gay but for defying him.

To my dad, there was no greater crime than insubordination.

Everything else—who we were or what we wanted—was irrelevant.

“You think your education is a joke,” Dad said to Jack in his mild-mannered tone. “You, who are already behind an entire year. You won’t think it’s quite so funny when you’re pumping gas at the local Sunoco or flipping burgers at Cassidy’s.”

Jack shrugged. “Honest work.”

My father stared him down. Jack stared back, but I noticed his Adam’s apple hitch in his throat.

Then Dad muttered just loud enough for us to hear, “Degenerate.”

Jack flinched, and his eyes grew shiny. Our father glanced up, studying my brother’s unshed tears and my stricken face.

“Oh, am I making your life hard for you? For either of you? Hm?”

I felt pinned to my chair. Beside me, Jack swallowed hard.

Dad folded his hands. “Is it difficult that I have given you everything you could ever possibly want? Clothes? Cars? A first-class education at the Academy? Is it a tremendous hardship that I’m invested in your education and success?”

“No, Daddy,” I whispered.

Jack shot me a hard, fast look.

“Because I can make it all disappear as easily as I’ve made it happen. You can have everything, or you can have nothing. The choice is yours.”

The air felt tight and thick, the entire world narrowing until there was nothing left but my dad’s cold blue stare.

Finally, Jack tilted his chin, his voice quavering as he asked, “Are we done here?”

Our father nodded his head. Once. Jack tore out of the chair, out of the study, and slammed the door.

Unbothered, Dad turned to me. “Your schedule, please.”

I dug into my bag for the printout of my classes and handed it over. He set it on the desk and copied it into his spreadsheet. Since Jack and I were in middle school, he kept track of every grade, every test score, every average. Anything less than an A-minus, and there were consequences.

I cleared my throat. “Dad, we need to talk about calculus—”

“It will look good on your application to Brown,” he said, the digital green of his spreadsheet reflected in his glasses.

“Only if I pass,” I said. “Daddy, I’m just not good at math. I barely survived last year. And I don’t need calculus to graduate anyway. I’ve completed all the math requirements. If I take calculus and fail, it’s going to bring my whole average down.”

“Then you had better not fail.”

My fingers gripped my bag until they ached. “Daddy, please. Hear me out. If I drop it, I’ll have more time to devote to my other classes. And there’s dance and prom committee…”

“I’ve told you before, prom committee is a waste of time.”

I recoiled. Designing the senior prom was the only shot I had at showing him what I was capable of. What my dreams were made of. If I didn’t have prom, I had nothing.

“I’ve made an allowance to that indulgence,” he continued. “But if your grades begin to suffer, then that is what you will drop.”

Tears stung my eyes, but I fought them back. “What if I replaced calculus with something better for my application? I could volunteer somewhere. Maybe the animal shelter—?”

“And have you come home smelling like unwashed dog?” He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

I don’t know why I thought that would work; we’d been begging to get a dog for years, and my dad refused to hear of it.

I heaved a breath and threw out the longest of long shots. “Maybe I could…get a job?”

I said the last part so quietly, it was nearly a squeak. I would quit Royal Pride and maybe even prom committee if I could only earn my own money.

I’d save it up and move far, far away.

Dad kept typing. “You don’t need a job. I provide everything you need.”

He meant that I had a bank card for an account that he put money into, but all my spending was scrutinized. I had no savings. I wasn’t allowed to save enough that would take me far, far away. Heck, I’d never make it out of Rhode Island.

“I’m begging you. Let me drop calculus. I can’t do it. I—”

My father slammed his palm on the desk, making me jump. “Let me remind you, your PSAT score was a dismal 1100. You need at least a 1470 for Brown to consider you.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to hear excuses, Emery. You don’t know how the world works, but I do. I know what’s best for you. And I know that giving up because something is a little bit hard is what losers do. Do you want to be a loser?”

My cheeks grew hot under my dad’s hard stare. I knew what he was really asking: Do you want me to love you?

“I don’t want to be a loser,” I managed, my throat thick.

“Smart choice. Jack is hell-bent on throwing his life away. I will not allow you to embarrass this family the way he has. I will not allow it .” Dad turned back to his screen. “That is all.”

I got up on leaden legs and left his study, my heart heavy and with a thousand words piled up and locked behind my teeth.

I shut the door behind me and jumped to see Jack lounging against the wall under a portrait of our great uncle Reginald, the first shipping magnate who began the Wallace empire at the turn of the nineteenth century.

My brother wore a disgusted look on his face.

“What?” I demanded.

“Why do you always do whatever he says?” he whisper-shouted.

“Like I have a choice,” I hissed. “Should I talk back? Get kicked out of the house? And then what?”

Jack glanced away. I took a step closer, softened my tone.

“Jack, I—”

“Forget it.”

He pushed off the wall and stormed away. Back to his room. Back to his anger and loud music.

I went to mine just down the hall. My refuge. The one place I’d been allowed to express myself.

At my door, I stopped and took in all the white, pink, and bright blue. Three years ago, I’d designed it to evoke Japanese cherry blossoms in spring: pink-and-white decor with one sky-blue wall where I’d hand-painted a cherry blossom branch. Hopeful and bright but not overdone. Tasteful.

When they saw it, my mother had declared it, “a bit obvious.”

My father had said nothing.