Ricky and I owned a little two-story house in what locals jokingly called downtown Random, namely the five or six blocks around Main Street where a few hundred people lived. From our front door, I could walk to the sheriff’s department. The house wasn’t much—two small bedrooms upstairs; a kitchen, living room, and dining room downstairs; and an unfinished basement where mice took shelter from the winter cold. The yellow paint on the wooden siding was peeling away, the front porch needed repair, and the roof leaked over our bed when the rain got heavy. Even so, it was ours, and I didn’t want to lose it.

We’d stretched to buy the house three years earlier, with help from my dad. I didn’t know then that Ricky would be fired a year later and our income would be cut in half. But we were a young couple in Black Wolf County, and buying a house was what you did. There were no apartments, so either you lived with your parents or you saved up enough to strike out on your own. Or you left the area entirely and headed for the city. We’d stayed in my dad’s house for two years after we got married, and with him gone all the time, he was fine to have us live there as long as we wanted. But in his house, I was still a kid, and I wanted to be all grown-up. That was how life was supposed to go. You got married, you bought a house, you had kids.

I wanted that whole fairy-tale life more than anything. Believe me when I tell you that, sweetheart. But a fairy tale was not what I got.

When I got home, I kicked off my boots and sat on the living room sofa with my coat on. The Christmas tree in the corner was the only indication of the holiday. The tree was so tall that the top branch bent over at the ceiling, but we’d put it up right after Thanksgiving, so it was already turning brown and dropping needles. The ornaments on the branches were all the same, red and silver glass balls, and one had fallen to the floor and cracked. We couldn’t afford gifts, but my dad and brother had sent a few things, which we’d put under the tree. I’d made big plans to cook a roast and potatoes and bake pies in the days before Christmas, so all we’d have to do is heat everything up, but those plans had gotten away from me.

“You’re late.”

Ricky came into the living room from the kitchen. He gnawed on a pan-fried chicken leg from the refrigerator and sat down in the armchair next to the tree. He wore pajama bottoms, and his chest was bare.

“Yeah. Sorry.”