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Fiona’s always known that her little brother was destined for greatness.
Since he was a baby, Lip has been leaps and bounds ahead of his peers. This is the boy that was reading all by himself at four years old, his nose pressed so close to the worn yellow pages that he’d go cross-eyed trying to keep the words in sight. This is the kid that deciphered a subway map at seven years old and did the math and sweet-talked a conductor into looking for his brother’s favorite toy, when most kids his age don’t even know what a map is. This is the guy that took the SAT so many times that he could get a full score in his sleep, who aced every exam with flying colors, who schemed his way so brilliantly through all his problems that it’s hard to believe there’s anything he can’t do.
Fiona honestly doesn’t think there is. Sure, he’s not the greatest cook, and has definitely stained all their white clothes red multiple times thanks to washer mishaps, but still, she has this childish image of her brother as capable of anything. College, therefore, should be a walk in the park.
It’s a Friday in early November and things have been suspiciously calm for Fiona as of late. Sure, Debbie and Carl hate her right now, but they’re angry, hormonal teenagers, and she gets it. And Ian is missing, still, but she has faith that her little brother knows what he’s doing, that he’s smart and safe and pursuing his dream—it doesn’t stop her from calling hospitals and police offices every day just to check, just to make sure, but she’s learning to love him from afar. Mike is lovely as always, if slightly stressful in how utterly healthy and normal and good he is and expects her to be in turn.
And Frank, of course, is there, as he always is, stinking up the boys’ room and throwing an ever-present shadow over her life. But overall, she’s doing alright. Stable job, good boyfriend, food on the table. Kids okay, for the most part. Gallagher house running smoothly, chugging along under her careful watch. Eerily peaceful.
Which is why she isn’t surprised when the phone call comes.
“Debs?” Fiona calls, both hands busy as she stands at the counter, breading butterflied filets of chicken breast for chicken parmesan, “Can you get my phone for me please?”
From the kitchen table, Debbie groans and rolls her eyes. She, Carl, and Liam are are all sitting together, fucking around on their phones or scribbling in a coloring book respectively, and have thus far been cohabiting in relative peace. Fi struggles to hold back an eye roll herself at her hesitance, unwilling to pop the bubble of tentative calm they’ve just established.
“Please?” Fiona asks, “It might be work, Debs. Come on.”
“Alright, alright,” the girl sighs, heaving herself up to grab Fi’s phone off the table. Her face lights up as soon as she sees the caller ID. “Oh! It’s Lip! Hi Lip!”
“Put it on speaker!” Carl calls. For a moment, Debbie ignores him, talking animatedly into the receiver.
“Hey! How are you? How come you don’t call me or Carl?” she demands, “We miss you so much! When are you coming home? You should come for the weekend sometime. You—But—I—” Debbie falls silent all of a sudden, frowning. Fi gives her a worried glance, fingers pausing over the egg batter.
“What?” she asks, “What is it?”
“Speaker phone!” Carl demands again, but Debbie shushes him, frowning harder at whatever Lip’s saying into her ear.
“Phone?” Liam mumbles from the table, his big brown eyes wide as he stares from Carl to Debbie to Fi, “Lip in the phone?”
After a long moment of listening to Lip on the other end, Debbie’s face goes cold, closed-in, like she is most of the time nowadays. She purses her lips with annoyance. Shit. Fiona’s quick to stick her hands under the tap and rinse off the eggs and breadcrumbs still sticking to her fingers, wiping them hastily on a paper towel before turning back to her sister, and just as she does, Debs sticks the phone out to her gruffly, all teenage sass and arrogance.
“He wants you,” she tells her, and Fiona’s chest hurts at the declaration.
Her siblings have always needed her. Since they were little, they’ve always needed someone, anyone, to love them and feed them and take care of them, and that person sure as hell wasn’t going to be Frank or Monica or any of the other shitty adults that have come and gone from their lives without so much as lifting a finger for their sake. No, that person was always Fiona. But wanting her? God. She can’t remember the last time one of them wanted her anymore.
Taking the phone from Debs, she presses it hurriedly to her ear. Her hands are still damp, and the chicken is only halfway done, but she doesn’t care. Her brother wants to talk to her.
“Hey, kid!” she chirps, “How are you?” There’s a beat of silence on the other line, and Fiona’s brow creases with worry. “Lip? You there? What’s going on?”
“Fi,” says Lip finally, after a quiet choking sound on the other end of the line. Immediately, she’s in panic mode, terrified at the sound of his voice so taut and hurt, a million nightmare scenarios racing through her mind—Lip’s hurt, Lip’s dying, Lip’s not okay.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Fi says soothingly, her voice suddenly, unconsciously soft, like she’s speaking to a child, “What’s going on, kiddo? Are you okay?”
“I—Yeah,” Lip responds, but he doesn’t sound it. He pauses for a moment, releases a long, shaky breath. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I’m—I’m—Am I on speaker?”
Fiona glances up; Debbie and Carl are watching her intently, straining as though capable of listening in on his side of the conversation. Liam, happily coloring, is unbothered and content.
“Uh… No. You want me to go somewhere private?”
“No!” Debbie cries. Fi gives her an apologetic look, raising a finger to her for a minute of quiet. Carl pouts and slumps down in his seat.
“Yes,” says Lip, “Please.” Fiona swallows against the lump in her throat. She can’t remember the last time her little brother pleaded for anything, especially from her. She can’t remember the last time he sounded so small.
“Okay. Okay. Give me one second.” Pressing the phone against her blouse, she whispers to her siblings, “I’ll be right back.”
“What’s wrong?” Debbie asks.
“I’m not sure,” she responds, circling the table and grabbing her coat off the peg by the door, “I’ll tell you after.”
“But—!” Fi cuts off Debbie’s outcry as she sweeps out the door, shutting it firmly behind her. She sits down on the back steps and shrugs the coat over her shoulders to keep out the bitter Chicago cold, pressing the phone between her cheek and shoulder.
“Okay, I’m outside,” she tells Lip, “Talk to me, bud. What’s going on?” Lip is quiet for a moment. Fiona can hear him breathe with exaggerated slowness, like he’s calming himself down from an anxiety attack—she can almost picture him, hunched over his desk, fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose hard enough to leave marks. A sharp hurt spikes in her throat at the thought; it’s unnatural for her bold, brash, brilliant little brother to be so anxious.
“I… I’m freaking the fuck out here a little, Fi,” Lip responds finally, laughing breathlessly. Fiona softens immediately.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Shit here is… It’s been… It’s tough.”
“Well, you’re tougher,” Fi replies, “Way tougher than anything they could possibly throw at you there. Right? I mean, you’re a Gallagher. There’s nothing you can’t do.” Lip laughs shakily into the receiver, and a spasm of worry twists her heart.
“It’s not that simple.”
“No?”
“No, Fi,” says Lip, “I’m… I’m trying to tough it out over here, I’m just…” There’s a moment of silence where Fiona imagines he’s shaking his head, gathering up courage like walls of steel. “Forget it. Just—Forget it.”
“What? No, come on. Tell me.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Lip,” Fiona demands, without any room for debate. Her brother sighs. There’s nothing he can ever keep from her, really. She always knows when he bunks class, or passes his chores off on Debbie, or gets high at school. It’s some sort of uncanny, pseudo-maternal power she’s discovered she possesses, where she always either knows shit about her siblings or always manages to find out.
There’s a long moment where Fi stares silently out at the backyard, covered in the early evening frost and barren but for the bicycles leaned up against the side of the house. She shivers when a gust of wind threatens to blow her coat right off, and huddles deeper into it.
On the other end of the line, Lip sniffs deeply and swallows like he’s trying not to cry. Fiona grips the phone harder, brows furrowed, lips bitten raw with worry.
“Everything is just… So fucking hard,” he finally confesses, voice coming out strangled and devastating, “The professors actually give a shit here, and the classes are fucking—they’re actually fucking challenging, and they’re amazing, god, they’re amazing, but I actually have to work really hard to understand shit, and—and
work-study is eating up so much time and everything’s just kicking my ass and I don’t have time to do anything and I—and I—”
“Whoa, hey,” Fiona interrupts, cutting off Lip’s word vomit and leaving him panting, “Hey, Lip, breathe.”
“I’m—I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize. That sounds like shit, buddy, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he sighs, his tone revealing his exhaustion, “Yeah, I’m just… I’m really tired.”
“That sucks, kiddo,” says Fi, voice saccharine with sympathy, “What do you need, hm? What can I do to help? You need money? Uh, textbooks, school supplies? I can get you stuff, if you—”
“No, no, I don’t need anything.”
“I don’t want you to struggle. If there’s something I can do, you tell me.” It’s more of a demand than it is a question. Fiona’s job doesn’t make her the big bucks, exactly, but she has more money now than ever, and she’s in a position where she can actually help monetarily. Lip, however, brushes it off.
“No, I’m fine, Fi. I just need to buckle down and get some work done this weekend. And also, like, sleep. I’m running on fumes trying to get this essay done.”
Fiona isn’t sure what to say for a moment, suddenly tired. This is one of those times, which crop up every so often like living nightmares, when one of her kids is hurting and there’s nothing she can do to help. She hates the passivity of watching them all grow up, despises that sometimes the only way for them to get through whatever they’re facing is alone. She’d fix it all with her bare hands if she could. Anything, anything for them.
“Actually,” Lip says, suddenly remembering something, “Are you guys using the laptop?”
“Uh… Debbie uses it for school, and Carl uses it for porn,” Fiona jokes, “Can you borrow one from school?”
“Uh…” Lip hesitates, “I… Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Fi rolls her eyes. He’s lying, obviously. Like she can’t tell.
“You know what, no, don’t worry. I’ll get Debs a library card and tell Carl to buy himself some skin mags like the rest of us. You can have the laptop.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, of course. Why don’t you come down this weekend and get it?” Out of the purely selfish desire to see him again, she adds, “You can spend the night! I’ll cook your favorite dinner, we’ll have shitty beer and watch TV…” She feels like a little kid, asking earnestly for something silly. For missing him so damn much.
“I can’t,” Lip sighs, “I got this Physics project due on Monday so I booked some hours in the lab tomorrow… And I got work-study in the morning on Sunday. You think I can just come for like, an hour tomorrow night to grab it? I won’t be able to stay long.”
“Yeah, of course,” Fi says, though it hurts her heart to hear him refuse, “You don’t have to ask.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
It’s quiet, then, comfortable and warm. Fiona wishes Lip lived just a little closer, even though he’s just an hour and a half train ride away at Chicago Polytechnic, just close enough so she can pop over and say hello every day like she’s used to. She’s always known, in theory, that the kids would grow up and move out one day, get their own places and their own families and live their own lives, but she never expected it to happen so soon. She misses having them all under the same roof, close enough to hold and feed and mother. Loving from afar is hard. She kind of hates it.
“You know I love you, right?” she can’t help whispering to her little brother, “And I miss you so much?”
“Yeah,” he breathes, strangled and soft.
“And you know I’m so, so proud of you, all the fucking time?”
“Fiona…”
“Because I am. I’m so goddamn proud.”
“Aw, come on,” Lip laughs a little wetly on the other end of the line, “Don’t go getting soft on me now.” Fiona can’t help but to laugh.
“Fuck off! I’m trying to be nice.”
“Gross.”
“Okay, well, can you spare a minute to talk to Carl and Debs? They really miss you.”
“Uh…” Lip sighs, “I can’t, Fi, I got a class in half an hour. Fucking Astro lab, six-thirty to eight-thirty.”
“Five minutes,” Fiona pleads, “They’ll kill me if I hang up before they get a chance to say hi.”
“Okay, okay,” he laughs, “Five minutes.” Fi hauls herself up off the steps, gripping the coat around her shoulders to head back inside. She’s almost through the door when Lip speaks up again, in a low, hesitant voice, and says, “Fi?”
“Yeah?” His voice sounds small and a little nervous—it makes her think about when they were little, living in the backseats of cars and scary dealers’ closets and other people’s houses, and she and Lip and later, Ian, would huddle close together and tell themselves it would all be okay. There's that same small voice, that same burst of protectiveness that makes her want to bundle up all her little siblings and tuck them against her chest, warm and safe and protected.
“Thanks,” Lip whispers, and it melts her heart.
“You know I got you,” she says in response. It’s the only thing she can think to say. “Okay. Brace yourself.” Stepping inside, she calls to Debbie and Carl, who are bickering over something at the kitchen table, “Kids! Lip wants to talk to you guys!”
“Yes!” Debbie cries, reaching immediately for the phone.
Fiona laughs to herself as her siblings squabble over it, fighting for a solid minute before putting Lip on speaker phone and speaking animatedly over one another in an attempt to talk to their older brother. Liam, recognizing his voice, starts yelling Lip! Lip! Lip in the phone! and they’re forced to surrender it to him for a few minutes so Lip can coo at his little brother through the phone and make him—and the others—laugh. The sight warms Fiona’s heart. It’s been a while since this kitchen was filled with so much light and laughter.
By the time Lip manages to convince them that he has to go to class, Fiona has a plan. Fuck this loving-from-afar thing. It’s time to get up close and personal.
*
Lip’s college campus is fucking amazing.
It’s the biggest school Fiona has ever seen—which isn’t saying much, but still—with these huge brick buildings and sprawling greens dotted with benches and trees with neat little stone borders around the bases of their trunks. It’s livelier than she expected at eight pm on a Friday night, milling with students talking and laughing loudly, walking to and fro with their back laden down with backpacks. On their way to parties, perhaps? Ready to let loose for the weekend after five days of classes and work and… What else do college students do? Jesus. Fiona has no idea.
She has Lip’s dorm address written down. He’d given it to her at the beginning of the semester, just in case, but he’d refused any help from them when he was moving in. He’d wanted to do it all by himself, like he was four years old again and adamantly insisting he could tie his own shoes, even when he couldn’t. Looking at the place now, Fi regrets not pushing him harder on the issue.
Lip’s roommate lets her in before heading out with his girlfriend to a party. It’s a pretty small room, modest and neat, and Lip’s side is oddly familiar even if she’s never seen it before. His sheets are mussed up and there’s a full ashtray on what she assumes to be his desk, and there’s something about the place that’s so unapologetically her brother that it feels almost like stepping into the boys’ bedroom back at home.
Home. Fiona resists the urge to call home and check on the kids. She’d given them dinner and put Liam to bed, leaving Debbie in charge of watching the boys, promising to be gone for only a few hours. She trusts her sister; they’ll all be fine. Debbie might hate her a little more now for not letting her come, but ah well. A big family reunion is not what her brother needs right now. She knows this.
She’s sitting at Lip’s desk, thumbing idly through an English Lit textbook and reading some of the poems when the door creaks open. Fiona looks over to see her little brother, messy-haired and exhausted, frozen open-mouthed in the doorway.
“Hey kiddo!” she greets, getting up to give him a hug. He doesn’t move for a good minute, though, eyes nearly bugging out of his head at the sight of her standing there, like he can’t believe his eyes.
“What the—Fiona?” he splutters, “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I came to visit you,” she explains, “You sounded really stressed on the phone, so I came over to help. Brought you the laptop and some dinner.”
“You… What?” he laughs breathlessly, running a hand through his unruly curls, “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, shut up,” says Fi, rolling her eyes, “Of course I did. Now stop being a jagoff and come give your big sister a hug.”
As though broken from his trance, Lip lets out a startled laugh and complies, swinging the door shut and dumping his backpack on his bed before giving her a hug, tight and warm. Fi squeezes hard around his broad shoulders, pulling him down into her arms even though he doesn’t fit anymore, a little too tall and a little too broad to fold into her embrace like when they were kids. She bullies him into it anyway. He’s always gonna be her little kid brother, no matter how big he gets.
Releasing him finally from her death grip, Fiona holds Lip at arm’s length, looking him up and down with a contemplative huff. He’s wearing the new blue sweater she got for him for his birthday, and it’s already got a hole unraveling at one sleeve. Lip looks exhausted, dark bags under his eyes and tired creases over his forehead. He looks like he’s lost weight since he came here.
“You look awful,” she sighs. Lip shorts.
“Gee, thanks.”
“You know what I mean. Sit the fuck down and eat your dinner. It should still be warm.”
Fi forces him to sit down on his bed and hands him the Tupperware container of chicken parm and spaghetti she saved him from dinner tonight, before rummaging around in her bag for her emergency sewing stuff. She always carries around a needle and some thread—you never know when you’ll need it.
“Alright, give me your sweater,” she demands. Lip looks up at her with wide eyes, confused, his cheeks bulging with pasta like a chipmunk. “So I can fix the hole in the sleeve,” she clarifies.
“I don’t need your help,” Lip says, swallowing heavily.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone needs help.”
“Pot, kettle,” Lip scoffs, “You hate asking for help. You’d rather pass out during an overnight diner shift than ask for anything.”
“Well, I sort of hoped you’d learn from my mistakes, dumbass. And that was one time.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“Really?” Fiona asks, raising an eyebrow, “Is that why you called me today in the middle of a fucking anxiety attack over school?”
Lip averts his eyes, looking uncharacteristically shameful. Fiona sighs, rubbing a hand over her face.
“Kiddo, I just want to help.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“Try me.”
Lip sighs, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling as though praying for strength to deal with her. Fiona raises a brow at him, as though daring him to hold anything back. Lip’s strong, but of all her kids he’s the easiest to gently bully into compliance. Huffing, he finally gives in.
“Like I told you earlier. Shit here is just… hard. There’s so much to do and I have no fucking time to do anything.” He looks down at the Tupperware in his lap, stabbing a little moodily at the last bite of chicken parm. “Can’t even sit down and eat in peace, much less get everything turned in on time.”
“Hm,” says Fiona, nodding. Lip scoffs and looks over at her, eyes tired.
“‘Hm?’” he parrots, “Great advice, thanks. Appreciate it.”
“Fuck off. I’m thinking,” Fi says, “It sounds like you’re having trouble with time management.”
“Yeah, you think?”
“That’s an easy fix.” Fiona might not have been the greatest student back in high school, but time management shit, that she knows. Timetables, lists, plans—it’s how they’ve survived, all these years. She always has a plan.
“That so?” asks Lip.
“Yeah, let me take a look at your schedule, I can help you.” From the bed, he sighs, then starts counting off on his fingers.
“Uh, okay, so… Mondays, eight to nine, Physics lecture… Then I have work-study from nine-thirty to one-thirty, and then I have Lit—”
“Hold on, hold on,” Fiona interrupts in horror, “You don’t have this all written down somewhere?” Her brother gapes at her as if she’s sprouted three heads.
“Why the fuck would I need to have it written down somewhere? I can remember it.”
“Wha—What if—Lip,” Fiona splutters, rubbing at her temples with one hand, “Why wouldn’t you just write it down? That way you can plan shit better. Visualize everything so you can see what you have to do and when, what’s due and shit like that.”
“I don’t fucking need that.”
“Yes, you do. Trust me, it makes everything so much easier. Honestly, I can’t believe you’ve just been fucking around without a schedule or a real plan.”
“I don’t need one, Fiona, because I’m not gonna forget anything!” Lip snaps, “Okay? I’m not like you, I don’t need a giant fucking calendar to remember when rent’s due!”
His voice rises as he continues ranting, jabbing an accusatory finger at Fiona, who has to resist the urge to flinch away when he spits, “I don’t need a schedule planning my life out to the minute because I’m not a fucking moron who doesn’t know how to study. And I sure as shit don’t need to take bullshit advice from a fucking high school dropout who’s got no right to sit there and lecture me about what I’m doing wrong when she’s an academic fucking failure!”
The room is eerily silent for a long moment. In the distance, there’s the sound of indecipherable conversation from neighboring rooms. Somewhere, someone is playing music loudly, the beat reverberating through the walls in a rhythmic, steady pulse. The air in Lip’s dorm has gone cold and still.
Fiona’s face feels like it’s been dunked in ice, sickly and cold where the hurt sinks from her temples to her nose to down the back of her throat. There’s a pressure behind her eyes like she’s about to cry. She won’t, of course. Not in front of him. Never in front of her kids. But the pressure is there, regardless.
She’s always known that her siblings don’t think much of her—high school dropout, string of failed relationships, a complete mess of a resume, she gets it—but to be told that to her face, to be hit with the knowledge that this is all they see, all Lip sees, when he looks at her…
Clearing her throat, Fiona gets to her feet and starts collecting her things as fast as she can, her hands shaking as she grabs her back, shoving the sewing materials back in without a care that the needle is loose in the bottom where she might prick herself, grabbing her gloves and her coat and her hand and heading for the door and—
“Shit, wait, Fiona—”
“No, you’re right. Yeah. You’re right.”
“Fi, I didn’t mean—”
“You’re right,” she says quietly, cutting him off, pausing with her hand on the door handle. Her back is to her little brother so he doesn't see her looking vulnerable, still struggling to coax her mask of indifference over her expression of hurt. “I am a failure.”
“No, Fi,” Lip sighs, “No, I didn’t mean that.”
“Because I failed,” she continues, turning to look at him, eyes dry and hot with anger, “To teach you to give people in your life the respect they fucking deserve. You arrogant shit.”
Lip stares up at her from the bed, looking all the world like a little boy being chastised for spilling sauce on the sheets. After a long moment of just looking up at her, he nods, ducking his head down to his lap again.
“Yeah,” he whispers hoarsely, “I deserve that.” Fiona scoffs.
“Yeah, you do.” After a long silence, she adds, “I didn’t drop out because I’m an idiot.”
“No, yeah, I know.”
“I’m not a genius, but I was a pretty good student. I did fine in school.”
“Yeah.”
“I fucking taught you how to read.” He nods, twirling the two remaining noodles of spaghetti left in the Tupperware around one tine of his fork, round and round. “Those bigass calendars and notes and plans and shit, that’s how we survived. You know that, right? That’s how we made it work. How I made it work.” Fiona swallows around the lump in her throat, fighting down the waver in her voice.
“So maybe I don’t know shit about—about fucking Astrophyics,” she continues, “Or, or Philosophy or whatever. But I know how to get by when things are tough. When there’s not enough hours in the day to get everything done. When there’s five fucking kids looking at you for food and clothes and school supplies and you haven’t eaten or slept in forty-eight hours and, yes, the fucking rent is late because fucking Frank swept the last of your cash. So, sure. Maybe I’m a failure. But you don’t get to treat me like I’m a fucking idiot. ‘Cause I’m not.”
There’s another silence then, long and cold. Lip looks up at her through his lashes, cowed.
“I know,” he says quietly, “You’re, uh. You’re right.” After a moment of hesitation, he adds, “I’m sorry.”
For a moment, Fiona wants to keep yelling at him. She wants to smack him upside the head like he’s a little boy getting into trouble for the first time for shoplifting cigarettes and make him understand that she loves him and she hates him and everything she ever does is only for his own good.
Instead, she laughs.
“You fucking asshole,” she laughs, swiping a tired hand down her face, “I can’t believe my own ears. Did you just apologize to me?”
“Shut up,” Lip chuckles, smiling down at his lap. Fiona watches him lick the last of the tomato sauce off his fork and close up the Tupperware for her to take back home. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “I… I really didn’t mean all that shit. I’m just…” He sighs, rubs at his eyes with a palm. “I’m so fucking tired. And I… I guess… I guess I could use your advice,” he admits, like it’s physically paining him to say it.
“No kidding,” Fiona sighs. She sets her bag and coat and things back down and takes the Tupperware from him. When everything’s put away, she joins him on the edge of the bed. “You know I just want to help, right? I’m not trying to act like I’m better than you or anything like that.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“Okay. Okay. You want me to help you sort your schedule out, make a to-do list? Timetable, maybe, so you can manage everything a little easier?”
Lip nods at her, sweeping his curls off his forehead with a hand. A smile. An offering of peace.
“Yeah. Yeah, thanks.”
*
It takes Lip and Fiona less than an hour to write up a schedule, figure out what assignments are due when, and what times he has free to study. He doesn’t admit it, but Fiona can tell her brother finds it way easier to clearly see everything now that it’s written down. He’s always been a pro at mental math, used to complain when he’d get points off for not showing his work, whereas Fiona had to have everything written out in order to understand, but they’re more similar than they are not.
They both want to figure this out. To fix what’s broken, make it right.
To make this work.
It’s not the prettiest schedule, but it’ll do. Lip had to physically wrestle the multicolored highlighters out of Fiona’s hand so she didn’t start decorating on instinct from years of helping with the younger kids’ school projects. He couldn’t, however, stop her from color-coding shit. Fiona considers this an overall victory.
When they’re all done, they chat idly for a little while—about college, about the kids, about life in general—in a way they haven’t been able to in quite a while. Fi’s just been too busy at work and Lip’s been too busy at school, and this is the first time these past few months they’ve been able to really sit down and talk, outside of quick five-minute phone calls every other day. It surprises Fiona how much lighter she feels after talking to her little brother. She’s missed him so intensely that the knot of hurt in her chest from longing for her family to be reunited has become almost like a part of her body—always there, always aching. She hadn’t realized the pain until now, when it’s lightening by the company. How the hell is Fiona going to go back to normal life now?
“I should get going,” Fi sighs around eleven, checking her phone, “Or else Debs will literally murder me. I told her I’d be home by midnight at the latest.”
“You’re still going to be late,” says Lip. He’s stretched out on the bed, smoking a joint with his socked feet in her lap, occasionally poking her in the side to make her laugh. His sweater, the hole sewed up tightly, is hanging from the back of his chair. “It’s an hour and a half by train.”
“I know. I figure she’s more likely to forgive me if I leave now and get home half an hour late than if I wait any longer.” With a groan, Fi shoves his feet off her lap and hauls herself up off Lip’s narrow dorm bed. Behind her, he sits up and watches, the smoke curling idly from his fingertips, as she collects her things once again to get ready for leaving.
“You should come by more often,” he says, “Maybe college life will rub off on you.”
“Ha, ha,” Fi jokes sardonically, “As if.”
“Who knows? You could take some classes… Become a businesswoman or something.”
“Sure, right after I join the Olympics and win the lottery.”
“I’m serious.” Fi turns to look at her brother while pulling on her coat and hat. He looks so sincere, his eyes wide and honest when he adds, “I mean it, Fiona. You can do anything, you know? Anything. You’re not a failure in the slightest.”
Fiona swallows hard around the lump in her throat, choking back emotion. She feels all of four years old again, being told for the first time that she was a big sister. The title, then, had felt like a proclamation of eternity, a promise, an identity. A cracking open of the world. She supposes it has become that after all.
In lieu of a response, Fi walks over to the side of the bed and pulls her little brother into a hug. With the way they’re oriented, this action squishes Lip’s face into her stomach and allows him to hug her back around the waist like they’re children again, maybe all of ten and six, a little bit of innocence left in their lives. Fiona cards a hand through his curls and tries not to cry.
“Okay,” she says, clearing her throat, “I’m gonna head out now.”
“Okay,” Lip replies, “Bye, Fiona.”
“Bye, kiddo.” Fi leans down to give him a kiss on the forehead, which Lip bats away with a groan, and gives him a watery smile from the doorway of the dorm. Sitting there with his socked feet hanging off the edge of the bed, he reminds her of what all of this is for.
“I love you.”
Lip smiles. She sees him, as though in a mirage superimposed over the world: as a little boy, five and gap-toothed; at eleven, too much brilliance and nowhere to put it; at seventeen, her best friend, her little brother.
“I love you too,” he responds, and things don't seem all that difficult anymore.
On the train ride home, Fiona pulls out her phone to check the time. It’s nearing twelve. She’s going to be late. Fully prepared for Debbie’s increased wrath, she sends her a text to let her know, and is left on read. She checks her work email and scrolls through her unread messages, taking note of the new information and updates Mike has just sent out.
Then she navigates to Ian’s contact and calls her brother.