Page 32 of The Surprise

ETHAN.

BETH.

He is too much. LOOK. YOU MAY BE FINE WITH IT NOW, BUT WAIT UNTIL THE RANCH GETS TAKEN.

MY MOM WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN.

He’s so sure, but only because he doesn’t know my dad. I once saw him punch a guy at a Saturday morning basketball game. No one else was watching and when the guy complained, my dad laughed and said he was lying. He said it was anaccident, but I knew it wasn’t. I’m pretty sure the guy he hit knew, too. Ethan’s mom’s amazing, but there’s no way she can beat my dad.

It’s not going to be a fair game.

It never is, not with my dad. He’ll do whatever it takes to win.

And winning means sending Ethan and his family packing. I suddenly feel like I want to cry and like I want to puke at the same time.

HOW ABOUT THIS? I text. IF YOUR MOM WINS AND YOU KEEP THE RANCH, WE’LL GET ICE CREAM TOGETHER TO CELEBRATE.

He doesn’t reply.

MY TREAT.

Of course it would be my treat—only, I know there’s no way I’ll ever be paying for that ice cream.

Or wearing the adorable, sweet shirt he bought me. Unlike the Brooks family, nothing about me is shiny, and even a blinged-up shirt from Target can’t change that. I’m a blue-skinned alien with a big head, and I always will be.

8

Ethan

When I was growing up, Monday night was ice cream night. Sure, sometimes I had a basketball game, or there was some kind of school project that got in the way, but probably forty-five Mondays a year, our whole family went out for ice cream.

For a while, we were obsessed with Baskin-Robbins. It was kind of the gold standard, right? But then we discovered Marble Slab, and that was a whole new level. Right before Dad died, Mom discovered this strange kind of ice cream from Korea, called bingsu.

She loved it!

Every Monday, we’d drive all the way into Chinatown to get shaved, sugary milk stuff that often had fruit or breakfast cereal toppings.

Then Dad got diagnosed with cancer.

We never talked about it, but those ice cream Mondays, that family activity that I always took for granted. . .it died before he did.

And it’s never been revived.

I shouldn’t have asked Beth to ice cream, probably. No one has even breathed a word about going to ice cream since Dad passed. Not even clueless Gabe. Maybe he forgot about it. Kids don’t have the best memory. But I think it’s more likely that he remembers them, but like the rest of us, he’s afraid of how Mom would react if he suggested going for ice cream.

Without Dad.

He was the big ice cream fan, long before Mom’s obsession with bingsu. He was the one who would taste five different flavors every time we went, talking to each kid about what he should choosethis time. Even thinking about that makes me a little emotional. Which is stupid. I should be happy about memories of things that used to make us smile.

So why did I ask Beth to ice cream?

Maybe it’s because I want to feel that joy again. I want to be able to go grab ice cream like it’s no big deal. It’s just frozen sugar and cream. It’s not this happy memory we can never recapture. No, it’s just a thing that people do to have something delicious or enjoy some time together.

But when Beth texts me and says, WE’LL GET ICE CREAM TO CELEBRATE. MY TREAT, my throat closes off. My eyes well up with tears.

It’s stupid.

He’s been gone for almost two years. Like, get over it, Ethan.

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