“You don’t get it. Mom’s going to patch you,” Jake said. And suddenly, the room was filled with too much air for Gabriel to breathe. “Dad’s going to patch, too. Says it’ll be easier to forget you than lie to Mom. You’ll be gone from this family with no way of coming back. They wanted to fill you last week, but I stopped them. I said I’d heard from you, that you’d changed, that I was going to bring you back.”

A thousand futures opened around Gabriel, each with its own destiny. In one, he picked up the cup and threw the steaming jasmine tea in his brother’s face; in another, he grabbed the chopsticks and used them to gouge out Jake’s eyes; and in another, he whispered, “Okay,” and became one of the many boys he’d seen in Beijing, the Chinese sons about to be disowned from real-estate money who’d danced with abandon beneath the blue lights of the club and a year later could be found scratching their patched scalps as they rented shitty apartments to couples in the outskirts of Beijing. They were ghostly replicas of themselves, now with wives or fiancées: patched men who Gabriel knew would still get hard if he kissed them. Gabriel also saw his own future: his entire life’s history replaced with surgeon’s spackle, worship songs, and the love of a family who would otherwise have patched him.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel finally answered. “David was right, I should’ve patched Mom and Dad a long time ago.”

“Dude, what’s wrong with you? You look like you’re fucking dying here. Come home. I’ll buy you the ticket. Just lie to Mom and Dad. They aren’t monsters; they love you.”

“Are you going to patch me, too?”

“I’m not going to patch my own fucking brother,” Jake said. “But they will.”

Gabriel rose from his seat and put his napkin on the table. “Well, then I guess you’ll be the one to lie to them for the rest of your life.”

“Gabe, stop—”

For a moment, it seemed like Jake would rise and tackle him to the ground as he’d done that Christmas, but he didn’t. Instead, Gabriel crossed the banquet hall, out into the lobby with its scented air and its glass dispensers of iced water, and walked through the spiraling doors into the city with its thick, unbreathable air.