“I’m sorry, Felix.”

“I’ll let you help open my presents on Christmas, if you want,” I offer.

“Thank you,” he replies, with a haughty expression for our father. “It’s about time I’m appreciated.”

I’m watching my miniature self, how easy it is for her and her siblings to hug each other, to be in each other’s space. Tangling up together like a rat king, play-fighting and real-fighting and forgiving so quickly, arms around shoulders, holding hands. Someone always hugging somebody else. I find myself tearing up over it, but when Sean rudely points this out, I scowl and say I’m only misty-eyed because I miss what it was like to not know him.

Mom’s misty-eyed, too, because she and Dad were separated at the time this particular video was recorded, coming together only for our birthdays and holidays. Watching herself struggle, even though it’s impossible for the rest of us to tell she was struggling, is dredging up some bad memories. Grandma’s misty-eyed because she doesn’t know what happened to the ruby earrings she sees her younger self wearing and accuses her dead mother of stealing them. Most of the kids have left the room by now, even though they were promised this would be a captivating stroll down memory lane, and they call us narcissists for watching ourselves with so much enthusiasm. Peach Tree cries because she’s not in the videos with us. “I’m left out of everything! It’s not fair!”

Even Hall is teary. “Aww,” I whisper, smiling. “You big softie.”

He wipes his eyes, backing away. “Excuse me for a moment.”

The tape ends. Mom sifts through a stack of videos with labels like ’03 Christmas Play, Sweetheart Pageant, and Kaia Talent Show. Everyone is clamoring for videos in which they are the star. Mom has veto power, eliminating any video in which she doesn’t like her hairstyle. We’re all exclaiming that we’d forgotten about Diana, our cocker spaniel who passed away the day I graduated high school, when I realize Hall is still gone.

I find him in our room, perched on the edge of his bed, shoulders rounded to fit beneath the top bunk, staring at the floor while his hands idly play with a snow globe. His eyes are red-rimmed and bright, and my heart drops, a cold stone, down into the pit of my stomach.

I thought he was being sentimental, like the rest of us. This isn’t sentimental-sad. This is sad sad.

“Hey,” I say softly.

“Hi.” The snow globe contains two miniature figures ice skating, holding hands, their scarves flying behind them.

I close the door behind me. “How are you doing?” As soon as the door’s shut, I’m pulled into the magic he’s cast over the room, and I see that he isn’t sitting on the bottom bunk after all. He’s sitting on a red bench at the edge of the ice rink, watching a memory of the two of us skating together. Whenever it ends, he hits replay, and we go round and round again.