The Story of Us Read Online Free PDF

but ifyou are “stepping,” you have never, will never, arrive. Thanks to Jon Jakes’s kids, Olivia and Scotty, who lived with us part-time at our old house, I didn’t believe families were meant to blend. Blend—it makes you think of smoothness and order, when it’s all more like that closet in Olivia’s room, with all the shit stuffed in and falling out. Blending was a great idea, yeah, but Olivia and Scotty didn’t care about school and ate junk food for breakfast, and on the weekends they’d stay in their pajamas in front of the TV until the day got dark again. We did care about school; we ate Cheerios, not Skittles, in the morning; and on the weekends we’d go to a baseball game of Ben’s and come home only to find them in the same place as when we’d left. You can use whatever words you want, but I knew they weren’t my brother and sister. I felt more connection to my cousins Zach and Kristina on my Dad’s side. We’d only met them once, but they had our same noses. You know your people. You recognize your tribe, same as a dog knows a dog is different than a cat.
    Anyway, here’s what happened: Jon Jakes’s kids kept trying to Parent Trap their mom and dad back together, until my mother finally lost patience. She handed back her engagement ring at the Sea-Tac Airport, just before a romantic pre-wedding trip for two to Cabo San Lucas. After the Jakes trio was finally gone, Gram brought over these small bound packages of sage we were supposed to burn to get rid of the bad feelings in our house. She went around our rooms waving the smoking bundle in the air as Ben and I cracked jokes. Put some jujusmoke in the laundry hamper, Gram. Ah-ha-ha-ha! We didn’t need the sage, though. A week after they’d left, my mother was already back to singing loudly in the kitchen as she made her morning coffee, with Jupiter dancing happily around her feet. Good morning, sunshines! You brighten my daaaay! The bad feelings had taken their Skittles and gone home.
    Amy and Hailey, though. They were Dan Jax’s daughters, and it was a new start for Mom, for all of us, or so went the talk I gave myself as I made my way up the boardwalk. My mother deserved my good attitude, and so did Dan Jax, and Amy and Hailey were probably great people who were nothing like Olivia and Scotty. Maybe I would even like them. They were Dan’s kids, so why not? I had a brief fantasy—Amy and Hailey and Natalie and me, having coffee someplace in Seattle, going to the film festival. Amy making us laugh so hard. Hailey staying over in my dorm room. The thing was—it could be great. A big family. It was a possibility. Even if my experience in these things told me that their alien planet was likely on a collision course with our alien planet.
    “Well, Jupe, here we go.” She definitely noticed that dog up there. “Let’s do it, huh?”
    I could see them up on the bluff standing on the grass too, my mother with her wavy gold hair falling below her shoulders, in her pastel sundress and bare feet, and Dan Jax, with his black hair combed back into a pony tail, wearing his jeans and denim shirt, and yeah, with those strong hands that came from his work as a contractor. The two of them looked likesalt and pepper, day and night, but they were so similar, it could get annoying. Still, I could see it even from there. She was being herself, something she never was with Jon Jakes, or Vic Dennis, or even my father. I wondered if that’s what love looked like. Is that what I felt with Janssen, those summer days when we lay on a blanket on the grass, just reading, toes entangled with toes? Or was being with Janssen something else? Like that time we’d driven out to see the hot-air balloons in Woodinville, maybe. When we’d stood on the ground and held hands and we watched one take off, lifting to join all the others up above. I was glad I wasn’t on that crazy thing. But I thought something else then too. What if you never felt what it was like to rise