There is a day when they are able to bring the boy, their son, home from the NICU. They have prepared his room. There has been time, after all, a surplus of time to outfit the room with the usual things. A crib. Soft animals. A rug. A chair. A light.

One day the crib is too small. The boy learns to walk. Naomi graduates. Sometimes she takes the boy to the zoo or to museums. One day she says to Thanh, Sometimes I forget that he didn’t die. Things were so bad for so long. Sometimes I think that he did die, and this is another boy entirely. I love him with all my heart, but sometimes I can’t stop crying about the other one. Do you ever feel that way? Harper still works too much. Sometimes he tells the boy the story about how he was born, and the island, and the wedding. How Harper’s wedding ring fit over his wrist. How Harper, wearing a wedding dress, rode over in a glass-bottomed boat, and was told that their son was born. Han gets older. She says, Sometimes I think that when I am dead and a ghost I will go back to that hospital. I spent so long there. I will be a ghost who washes her hands and waits. I won’t know where else to haunt. The boy grows up. He is the same boy, even if sometimes it is hard to believe this could be true. Thanh and Harper stay married. The boy is loved. The loved one suffers. All loved ones suffer. Love is not enough to prevent this. Love is not enough. Love is enough. The thing that you wished for. Was this it?

Here endeth the lesson.

The New Boyfriend

Ainslie doesn’t rip open presents. She’s always been careful with her things, even the things that don’t matter. Immy is a ripper, but this is not Immy’s present, not Immy’s birthday. Sometimes Immy thinks that this may not be Immy’s life. Better luck next time around, Immy, she tells herself.

Ainslie scores under the tape with a fingernail, then carefully teases the pink wrapping paper out from under the coffin-shaped box.

Ainslie’s new Boyfriend is in there.

Ainslie’s birthday, this year, is just Ainslie and her bestest, oldest friends. Just Ainslie, Sky, Elin, and Immy. No family allowed. No boys.

Earlier there was sushi and cake and lots of pictures to put up online so that everyone will know how much fun they are having.

No presents, Ainslie said, but of course Immy and Elin and Sky bring presents. No one ever means it when they say that. Not even Ainslie, who already has everything.