worth of muscles and skin and fat and a bag of organs like you get with a turkey.”
“Wow, gross.”
“Sorry,” she said, a little more quietly. “I guess I’m afraid I seem like a sad story, too.”
“Well, you don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t go around telling people the thing about the bag of turkey. But everybody just wants you to be happy. Go get your project, and then they can talk to you about whatever you’re doing, and they can stop asking me what to say to you, and I can retire from my job as the Eveleth Whisperer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you have to be the whisperer.”
“Can I suggest for your project that you take a class in not apologizing all the time?”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, Jesus.” He hollered, “Dean, get out here, would you?”
Dean’s door opened, and he walked through the kitchen, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “See you, Ev.”
Andy shot her a look. “Okay, then. I don’t know how late it’ll be. Their PJs are in the bag by the door. Thank you again. Text me if Lilly rips your eardrum in half.”
“Will do.” From the window in her living room, Evvie watched Andy’s taillights until she couldn’t see them anymore.
* * *
—
By the time The Little Mermaid was over, Evvie’s room had gone quiet. Lilly had conked out halfway through and was now a tangle of limbs extending across half the bed, while Rose curled against Evvie’s side on the other half. When the credits rolled and Evvie shut off the DVD player, she leaned over to peek at Lilly, whose open mouth was smashed against her pillow. Evvie leaned over and whispered to Rose, “Your sister is even more asleep than usual.” Rose pushed herself up to peer across Evvie’s body, then lay back down. “She’s pretty funny,” Evvie said softly.
Rose rolled her eyes and returned Evvie’s hushed tone. “She’s loud.”
“She is loud. I think she wore herself out singing along.” Evvie smoothed Rose’s hair. “Are you getting excited for Christmas?”
Rose shrugged. “I guess.”
“You guess? You don’t want any presents?”
Rose’s one-sided smile was one of the things she’d gotten from Lori. “No, I want presents.”
Evvie slid down and pulled the blankets up tighter over them both. “What’s the matter, my girl?”
Rose sighed, and it made Evvie think that seven was too young to have a sigh like that in her vocabulary. A sarcastic sigh, yes. An angry-and-frustrated sigh, yes. But not one that sounded like a fifty-year-old diner waitress. “I’m going to my mom’s for Christmas, and she says I have to get Fred a present.” Fred was Lori’s boyfriend, a Charleston furniture designer she had met a few years ago, not long after she and Andy separated.
“And you don’t want to?”
“I’m only supposed to have to find presents for my family,” Rose said.
Evvie nodded. “Ah.” It could only be the first or second year the kid would have picked out her own gifts for anyone, but Rose’s quiet picking at her fingernails certainly spoke of a trespass against some expectation. “Well, lots of people buy presents for friends, too, you know.”
“Do you and my dad get each other presents?”
“No,” Evvie said. “But that’s because we’re lazy and we hate shopping.” Rose smiled. “Your dad would buy me some potato chips from the vending machine and I’d buy him a hot dog at the gas station.”
Rose laughed into her pajama sleeve, then she started rolling and unrolling the edge of the blanket. “Fred is so boring. He’s nice, but all he talks about is chairs.”
“Does he like anything else? Sports? Music? Books?”
Rose turned to look at Evvie and paused, making her eyes as big as she possibly could, before saying, “He lit’rally only talks about chairs.”
Evvie squinted hard at Rose. “How about…golf? Does he play golf?”
Rose shook her head. “He doesn’t do anything.” She waited a perfect beat. “Just chairs.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Evvie said. “Get him a tie.”
“You think he wants a tie?”
“No, probably not. But ties and perfume and candy dishes and stuff have been perfectly okay for hundreds of years when people don’t know what to buy. A tie is a nice, safe present.”
“I don’t know if it’s good enough,” Rose said.
Evvie grabbed Rose’s hand, admiring her long fingers. “You know what? You don’t have anything to worry about. Your mom and dad love you, and I’m sure Fred loves you, too. And when Fred sees that you got him something, he’s going to be happy, because it’s a nice thing to do, and