Isabel Gerber used to hang about our department when she wasn’t teaching advanced Spanish conversation. Argentine, but of Swiss descent, she stood a foot taller than Lin, wore her hair in a blond waterfall down her back, and spoke with a slight and charming lisp. The two women were poster girls for polar opposites, but they clicked in every way a couple can click.

Until last year, when they cut it off, canceled their engagement, and did what every gay man and woman had to do to avoid being shipped off to a camp: they never spoke to each other again. Not that there was a hell of a lot to talk about once Lin’s and Isabel’s wrist counters went on.

“I hope they’re being careful,” I say. The thought of Lin, big brained and small bodied, working off her sins of the flesh with her bare hands, makes me cringe. Jackie could deal with that shit. But Lin’s not Jackie. And then another, more sinister, thought weasels its way in: what if we’re all being followed?

I shake the question from my head—there’s no room for any more thoughts, not one single neuron left to spare—and wash dead mouse off my hands while we wait for Morgan.

“So. Monday,” Lorenzo says. He’s not talking about work.

“Monday. Afternoon.”

The clock on the lab wall says five. I have less than forty-eight hours to make what I know will be an irreversible decision.

My parents, this baby the size of an orange inside me, and Lorenzo balance on one side of the scale. Patrick and the kids, on the other. Two seemingly inevitable but different fates hang over each choice like storm clouds. Stay and wait for Reverend Carl to ratchet up his terrible game, or go and watch Europe crumble to its knees, close-up, front row, best seats in the house.

Next to me, Lorenzo inches closer, enough so that our hands touch. It’s a solid feeling, those fingers of his brushing mine.

But it’s not enough.

Chapter Fifty-six

FIFTY-SIX

It’s nearly seven o’clock by the time I pull my Honda into the driveway. The sky is still light enough that I can’t imagine winter or the darkness it brings. At this time of year, I always fool myself into thinking winter won’t come.

But it will. It always does.

Patrick has told Sonia and the twins a white lie, although I’m not sure how white it is, which explains why they’re in the middle of three simultaneous board games instead of moping about Steven’s absence. Sonia breaks away from her brothers to hug me. “I’m winning!” she says. “Again!”

I raise an eyebrow at Patrick.