“Oh my God, I love it. You guys are going to have a blast. Sounds kind of expensive, though.”

“I … I have access to money. My mother had money. A substantial amount. And her will, unbeknownst to my father, left all of her money to her children. I’m in charge of the trust.” He pauses. “What about you? What are your plans for break?”

“Just me and James. This year we’re going to the house we grew up in, not my aunt’s like we always used to. Kind of the first time we’ll be there in a long time. It’s going to be … weird.”

There is a deep roaring grumble from the backseat. “Where is my ginormous TV? Where is it? I need me some big plasma love.”

I smile. Sabin is awake. “We’ll be there soon.”

“HERE WE COME, STORE OF THE GIANT TVS!” he screams, planting a hand on top of Chris’s head and then mine and ruffling our hair. He leaves one hand resting on Chris’s shoulder as he sits back. “It’s a good day, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Chris and I say.

When we get to the mall, we fight our way through the crowd of frenzied shoppers to reach the department store. Sabin disappears into the mob while Chris and I spend twenty minutes assessing the television options.

“Which one do you like?” Chris asks.

“The black one with the big screen.”

He slaps my arm. “You’ve narrowed it down to twenty.”

“Oh, I don’t know. They all look the same to me.” I look around at the array of sets. “It just needs to work.”

“That’s an excellent quality to look for in a TV.”

Now I slap his arm. “You pick. Don’t zero out my bank account, but pick the most awesome one, or there’s going to be hell to pay. I’m going to check on Sabin.”

I locate him, not surprisingly, in the small appliance section. When he sees me coming, he joyfully holds up a box and yells, “See? I told ya! Coffee, toast, eggs, and bacon! All at once! It’s a miracle!”

I laugh. “I’m very glad you found what your heart desires. Let this be my gift to you because I could never pick out such a lovely, er”—I look at the box again —“baby-blue gadget.”

“It’s not a gadget. It’s a ‘breakfast station’,” he corrects me.

“I would love to buy you this breakfast station.”

“Fine. But in return, I’m buying you some DVDs to go along with your new television.” He puts his hand on my back and guides me to the movie section. “Let’s see … We’ll start with Blue Crush.” Sabin starts piling discs into his arms. “And then 50 First Dates. Oooooh! Lilo & Stitch! How about Pearl Harbor?” He waves the movie at me and winks.

“Kind of a random selection.” I stare at the movie until it clicks. It’s not a random selection at all. All of those movies have one thing in common. Hawaii. “Oh, God damn it, you were awake in the car, weren’t you?”

Sabin starts to dance idiotically in the aisle. “We’re goin’ to Hawaii! Oh yes, we are! Gonna be some hula girls and some mahi-mahi dinners! Swimming and snorkeling—”

“Shhhh! Stop it! You’re not supposed to know!” I look around to make sure Chris isn’t nearby. “Don’t tell him you heard anything, okay? He’s really excited to surprise you.”

“Okay, okay. I promise. Not a word.” He turns serious for a minute. “I do have some words for you, though.”

I frown. “Shoot.”

“Chris is smart, but he doesn’t know everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, Blythe, last night you told me to let Estelle have her God, to believe in what she needed to.” He sighs. “You have to do the same. If you believe in …” He looks around the chaotic store and starts over. “I didn’t hear the whole story, but I don’t have to know details to realize that you’ve been through some shit, and you have every right to hold tight to whatever gets you through the night. Know what I mean, sugar? Maybe you believe that coincidences aren’t coincidences. Maybe you have your own version of a higher power, or you trust in the belief that there are connections among seemingly disconnected parts of the universe. Maybe you have a spiritual side that has nothing to do with God or religion, it’s just your own.”

“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t.”

“I think you do. Don’t let Chris talk you out of something that’s real to you. He’s brilliant, and beautiful, and about as perfect as they come, but that doesn’t make him right about everything. Hell, even though I freaked out on Estelle, I don’t know there isn’t something else. You don’t know that, and even Chris doesn’t know that. There’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t have to know everything. If you believe in fate and some kind of meaning and sense in this fucked-up world, then believe with abandon. Enjoy it.”

For a minute, despite the sound of the loudspeaker sales announcements and the nonstop chatter of shoppers, everything seems quiet. It is just me and Sabin in this huge store, and I’m overwhelmed at how well he’s tapped into my internal battle. My secret wish to believe in fate, spirituality, or something so I don’t only have to exist with the cold certainty I feel that there is nothing bigger than random chance. Yet Sabin’s words have somehow alleviated the pain I feel over the discord, and for a moment I wonder if it’s okay to be undecided. Or maybe to even hope for something.

Chris appears. “All set.”

I break away from Sabin’s stare. “What’s the damage?” I ask.

“Nothing. You’re all set. We can pull the truck around to the back and they’ll load it in for us.”

It takes me a second to understand what he’s telling me. “You bought me a ginormous TV?”

“And we’re going to Hawaii?” Sabin starts jumping up and down and tossing movies at us.

Chris just stands there grinning.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Old and the New

Outside in the freezing cold, I try to pace myself on the last run I’ll be doing in Wisconsin this year. Tomorrow morning, December 21, I take a flight home. By the late afternoon, I’ll be back in the house that I grew up in. James comes in on the twenty-third, so I’ll have two days entirely alone. But I am determined not to feel alone.

I’m not sure where I’ll run at home, and it’s making me anxious. If I get lucky, we won’t have snow, and it’ll just be the cold temperatures that I have to deal with. I’m used to those from running here, and I actually like it now that I have the right running gear. My dependency on running is undeniable, and I know that my workouts are going to suffer over break. The next playlist starts, and I smile. It’s a new one from Chris, and it makes this run easy. More than easy: exhilarating.

After my run, I shower and pack. Estelle is gone—again—so I set her Christmas present on her bed so that I don’t forget to give it to her before I leave. I have no idea if I’ll see her tonight or even tomorrow morning. As far as I know, none of her siblings know anything about this boyfriend of hers. I certainly wish that I didn’t.

I had the unfortunate experience of seeing her with him yesterday, and if I’d finished my anthropology paper just a few minutes earlier, I would not have been in the dark corridor of the department building just before it closed for the afternoon, thick paper in hand, cursing my professor for not accepting digital copies. But I was. When I rounded the corner to my professor’s hall, I saw them through the windows of the door that led to the back stairwell. Even with all of the self-pleasuring time I’m afforded with Estelle out of the room, I can’t say that I’ve ever fantasized about watching my roommate have sex with someone.

Especially not a professor.

It does, at least, explain why she doesn’t talk about him. I’m guessing that Estelle’s God does not endorse fucking your professor. I recognized the man she was screwing because he’d filled in for my professor one day, and I’d been fascinated by the way he had thumped the desk and then immediately snapped his fingers every time he wanted to emphasize a certain point. I sincerely hope that Estelle does not have to tolerate that habit when they fuck. Like, does he have an orgasm and then do the old thump-and-snap to underscore the point? Luckily, I don’t stay long enough to find out and manage to deliver my paper and get the hell out of there without being noticed. Unfortunately, I am stuck with the visual of Estelle vigorously humping the guy.