Notes on an Execution(24)

It was tradition: twice a year, on Christmas and her birthday, Hazel received an outfit that matched Jenny’s. They tore open the wrapping paper, Hazel’s cheeks aching from the fake smile. It was a dress this time, cotton, long-sleeved, the kind of thing you’d wear to a dinner party or a nice restaurant. Hazel could not fathom what she’d wear it for, but she forced down a grimace as she held the dress up, modeling, heather gray to Jenny’s olive green.

Her mother clapped, pleased.

“Okay,” she said. “Pancakes. Your father got that special syrup—”

“Wait.”

It was Ansel. His voice was raspy and frogged. He had barely spoken all morning. An odd tension radiated off him, scattered bolts of energy.

“I have something. A gift.”

Hazel sat quiet, listening to Ansel’s footsteps as he disappeared upstairs, the zip of his duffel bag. Her parents shifted uncomfortably, while Jenny picked little bits of carpet from the floor.

Ansel came back with his fists clenched, his angular features infused with a false excitement that felt stiff, almost cold.

“I’m sorry,” Ansel said, uncurling his palm. “I didn’t wrap it. But it’s for you, Jenny.”

Everyone gaped. Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth.

It was a ring. Not an engagement ring, though Hazel was certain the thought crossed her parents’ minds, as they exchanged apprehensive glances. The ring was chunky, vintage, the kind of jewelry that had clearly once belonged to someone else. It had a brassy band of unpolished gold, and the gem was large and purple, a size that would be garish if it weren’t for the color. A soft, lovely lilac. Amethyst.

“Ansel,” Jenny breathed. She seemed both thrilled and embarrassed—Hazel knew her sister. Jenny wanted to spin this narrative, to let it become something bigger and better as she retold it later, and she wished their parents were not sitting there, witnessing this lopsided truth. The halfhearted gesture, the ring’s otherworldly shine. “You really didn’t have to. Where did you get it?”

Ansel grinned, shrugging. “It made me think of you.”

Hazel could not pinpoint the sinking, as Jenny slipped the ring onto her finger, as her mother mumbled about resizing. She watched the stone glint in the early-morning light, refracted in the snowy bright—she did not know if the wrongness had to do with the ring, or the boy, or her sister, or maybe Hazel herself. You are happy for her, Hazel commanded, forceful. But the thickness spread anyway, gelling sickly across the back of her throat.

*

That Christmas dinner, Hazel tried to catch Jenny’s eye. At their mother’s urging, they’d both changed reluctantly into the matching dresses, though Jenny had already spilled a splotch of red wine down the front of hers. The purple ring glittered from Jenny’s finger—Hazel’s parents tried to feign normalcy, but her mother’s gaze flitted constantly to Jenny’s hand, which looked new and foreign, somehow older, as it reached for the platter of brisket.

Hazel and her parents had been firmly instructed not to ask about Ansel’s family. It’s complicated, Jenny had claimed. But Hazel’s dad was drinking whiskey.

“So,” her father said, his cheeks ruddy. “What does your family do for Christmas, Ansel?”

It was like the shock of bad news. A slow, fevered pause in the room, a dripping sort of dread. She could physically picture her father’s question hovering above the table. She wanted to reach out and grab the words, shove them back into his mouth. Hazel trained her gaze steadily on her plate, the gnawed bones glaring morosely from a puddle of juice. At her feet, Gertie gazed up hopefully, eyes wet and droopy, blissfully ignorant.

“I grew up in foster care,” Ansel said. Hazel watched her father’s face twist, mortified, his mistake dawning. “We didn’t really have traditions.”

“I’m so sorry—” her mother stammered.

“It’s okay.”

The awkwardness lingered in the air, mixed with something else. Something Hazel recognized, from all those years onstage—how the audience used to need her. Ansel had them hooked. Mesmerized.

“My parents left when I was four years old,” he said. “I don’t remember holidays with them. I had a little brother, but he died.”

It was horrifying, how little Hazel knew. She knew nothing about this person, or the endless moments Jenny had spent with him. She knew nothing about the world as a whole. Here Hazel was, in the boring cozy house she’d always taken for granted, full of socks for gifts and food they’d throw away when the leftovers turned. In this pretty little town, where nothing bad ever happened. Her parents were not wealthy, but they were comfortable. She had never wanted something she truly couldn’t have.

“I’ve been reading a lot of philosophy lately,” Ansel said. “Locke, in particular. He rejects the concept of bodily continuity, the idea that our physical beings make us who we are. Instead, he latches on to memory. Memory as the thing that makes us individual, as the thing that separates my human consciousness from yours. I have this idea. This theory, I guess. There is no such thing as good or evil. Instead, we have memory and choice, and we all live at various points on the spectrum between. We are created by what has happened to us, combined with who we choose to be. Anyway, I wanted to thank you. All of you, for allowing me into your home. Jenny, for everything. If I’m simply a series of choices, I’m glad they led me here.”