“Oh.” Marci looked up at the stars.

“Wanna wish on it with me?” offered Phil.

“Yeah,” said Marci, touched by the offer. “Yeah, that’d be nice,” she said, sitting down next to her husband and asking, “Which one?”

“Umm … see Shepalojo Mountain?” asked Phil. Marci looked across the lake and could make out the silhouette of Shepalojo Mountain against the starlit sky. Shepalojo Mountain wasn’t even sixteen hundred feet high, so it really should have been called Shepalojo Hill.

“Uh-huh,” said Marci. She and Phil were talking to one another familiarly and kindly. And they hadn’t done that in a long time. And they both liked it.

“Go straight up, right above it,” continued Phil, pointing directly above the mountain to the brightest object in the sky.

Marci followed the line of Phil’s arm to make sure she was looking where Phil was looking and asked, “The bright one?”

“Yeah.”

“That one?” asked Marci, making sure Phil could see which star she was pointing at. She seemed irritated, which confused Phil.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

Marci took Phil’s arm and used it as a sight just to be sure she was looking where her husband was pointing. “The reddish one, right there?” she asked, seeming more irritated.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s a planet.”

“What?”

“That’s a planet. You’re wishing on a planet.”

“That’s a—?”

“A planet, yeah.”

“Well, how do you know?”

“And it’s…” Marci started singing, ‘When you wish upon a star,’ not ‘when you wish upon a planet or Jupiter’!”

“How do you know it’s a planet?”

“Jupiter’s the brightest object in the sky this month. They’ve been sayin’ it on the weather all week. And your wish is never gonna come true if you’re wishing on a planet.”

“Well—”

“You gotta pay attention,” chided Marci.

“Why do you keep sayin’ that?”

“What?”

“That I gotta pay attention?”

“’Cause you don’t.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“Phil.” Marci looked right at her husband and said, “Happy Anniversary.”

Phil stopped breathing.

And tried to make sense of what his wife had just said.

And when he had made sense of it, he realized that he had forgotten their anniversary.

And his stomach hurt.

And he grimaced and weakly asked, “Huh?”

“Happy Anniversary,” repeated Marci. “That’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Phil knew he was in trouble.

He knew he was in the wrong.

And he knew he needed to say he was sorry.

And he almost did. “I’m…”

But then he didn’t.

And instead of saying he was sorry, he said, “I knew you were mad.”

Phil’s response to Marci’s revelation was not at all what Marci was expecting.

She was expecting him to say, “I’m sorry.”

Or, “Happy Anniversary to you, too, honey.”

Not, “I knew you were mad.”

“What?!?” squeaked Marci, glaring at Phil.

“I knew you were mad,” repeated Phil.

“I heard you!” snapped Marci, sighing in disbelief and glaring at her husband. “I’m not mad, Phil!”

“Yeah, you are! You’re mad at me, and pretty soon, outta nowhere, it’s gonna get ugly!” It had already gotten ugly. Phil was a good man, but he had a temper. And it was flaring.