“What?”

“The fire. Each gift had to reveal something about its bearer.”

The image of the heart, and her words—I love you—flashed in his mind.

“The fire is how my family died. In Australia.”

He told her how it had happened then, the words spilling like water over a broken levee. He told her about Charlotte, how he had come to America, about living with Orville, Agnes’s death, even Orville’s passing and what happened after, when Dale Epply showed up at the house.

He never could have imagined the release it brought. Telling someone, telling the person he trusted most in the world, having no more secrets with her, it was like a weight was lifted, a weight he hadn’t even known he was carrying. He felt freer and safer than he ever had before.

At her apartment, they made love again, slower this time.

They lay in bed after that, staring at the ceiling, listening to an mp3 playlist on her laptop with songs by Green Day, Weezer, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, REM, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

“I’m so sorry, Des. I had no idea.”

“It got me here. That’s all that matters.”

“Come with me tomorrow.”

His first meeting with her family had been enough for a lifetime, but a part of him wanted to go.

Despite that, he told her he couldn’t, that he wanted to be alone. It was a lie. He desperately wanted to be with her. He and Orville had never celebrated Christmas or birthdays.

He tried to imagine himself at her mother’s house, sitting at the dinner table or by the fire, with her at his side. He couldn’t. It wasn’t just because he was nervous about the prospect; it was because of something else. A problem far larger than he imagined.

He spent Christmas in the Airstream trailer, alone, a can of beans heating on the stove, an electric heater warming the tiny bedroom. He read library books and traded emails with Peyton. The tone in his replies never matched the warmth of her notes. That bothered him. He wrote and rewrote each message, like they were Egyptian hieroglyphics he couldn’t seem to arrange just right.