“So you think most people bet everything, their whole lives, on hope. Just hoping that what they’re feeling is real.”

“Real isn’t relevant,” Georgie said, turning completely to face Heather. “It’s like . . . you’re tossing a ball between you, and you’re just hoping you can keep it in the air. And it has nothing to do with whether you love each other or not. If you didn’t love each other, you wouldn’t be playing this stupid game with the ball. You love each other—and you just hope you can keep the ball in play.”

“What’s the ball a metaphor for?”

“I’m not sure,” Georgie said. “The relationship. Marriage.”

“You’re really depressing,” Heather said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be talking about marriage to someone whose husband just left her.”

“He didn’t leave you,” Heather said. “He’s just visiting his mom.”

Georgie looked down at the empty soup can in her lap.

“I keep waiting for you to say that it’s all worth it . . . ,” Heather said.

Georgie swallowed. “That’s a meaningless thing to say.”

They sat quietly for a minute until one of the pugs—the bulging pregnant one—scuttled down the stairs into the laundry room. Watching a pug run down stairs is a lot like watching a pug fall down stairs. Georgie winced and looked away. It ran over to her and froze, barking aggressively.

“I don’t like you either,” she said, turning back to the dog.

“It’s the shirt,” Heather said. “She hates that shirt.”

Georgie looked down at the pug that was BeDazzled on her borrowed shirt.

“They’re very territorial,” Heather said. “Here, move—let her climb into the dryer.”

“I may not like her,” Georgie said, “but I don’t want to cook her.”

“She likes it,” Heather said, pushing Georgie over and opening the dryer door. “It’s warm.” She lifted the dog into the dryer, on top of the clothes.

“What if it’s too hot in there?”

“Then she’ll jump out.”

“This is so dangerous,” Georgie said. “What if you don’t know she’s in there, and you start the dryer?”

“We check first.”

“I wouldn’t have checked.”

“Well, now you will. Look—she likes it.”

Georgie watched the little dog settle down on a pile of darks, glad that her own clothes were still in the washer. She frowned at the dog, then at Heather. “Remind me never to ask you to babysit again.”

Georgie’s bra fell apart completely in the washing machine. Her mom had a Speed Queen with an old-fashioned agitator, and the loose underwire had wrapped around the center and caught on something inside the drum. Georgie yanked the wire free.

It hadn’t even been ninety minutes since Neal hung up on her. He might not have made it to his aunt’s nursing home in Iowa yet. Georgie couldn’t just sit here, waiting all day. She should go to work. . . . God, no, she couldn’t deal with Seth right now.

She held up the bra, trying to decide whether she could get by on one underwire, then shoved it into the dryer with the rest of her clothes (dislocating the pug first) and ran back into the house.

Heather was sitting on the couch, messing with her phone.

“Do you want to go to the mall?” Georgie asked.

“On the day before Christmas Eve? Sure, that sounds like a great idea.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Heather was already narrowing her eyes; she narrowed them to a squint. “Aren’t you going to put on a bra?”

“I’m going to the mall to buy a bra.”

“Why don’t you just go home and pick up some clothes?”

Georgie thought of her house. Sitting dark and too far away, almost everything just as Neal had left it. “I need to get back here before Neal calls.”

“So take your phone with you.”

“He’s calling here—are you coming?”

“Nah,” Heather said. “I’ll stay. That way there’s somebody to answer the phone when Neal calls.” She put his name in air quotes.

They frowned at each other.

“Come with me,” Georgie said. “I’ll buy you something.”

“What?”

“I might have to go to the Apple Store.”

Heather leapt up from the couch, then froze. “I can’t be bribed; I won’t keep your dirty secrets.”

“I don’t have any dirty secrets.”

Georgie’s cell phone was still plugged in to the car lighter and woke up as soon as she turned on the car. She had seven missed calls and four voice mails from Seth, plus two missed calls and one voice mail from Neal’s cell. Georgie stopped—halfway in her mom’s driveway and halfway in the street—to play that voice mail. She held her breath, waiting to hear Neal’s voice. To hear now-Neal’s voice.

“Mom?” It was Alice. “Grandma wants to know if we’re allowed to watch Star Wars, Episode Five. I told her yes, but she said there’s a lot of violence. And Daddy went to see Grandpa at the cemetery, and he didn’t take his phone, so we can’t get his permission. I told Grandma it’s okay—that we just close our eyes when Luke cuts Darth Vader’s head off—but she doesn’t believe me. So call us back, okay? I love you—” Alice kissed into the phone. “—bye.”

Georgie set the phone down on the dashboard and backed into the street.

“Are you okay?” Heather asked.

“I’m fine,” Georgie said, shoving her glasses up and wiping one eye with the back of her hand.

“’Cause we just left the house, and you’re already driving like an asshole.”

“I’m fine,” Georgie said.

CHAPTER 21

There was no parking at the mall—they circled and circled before they found a spot. Then Georgie opened her glove compartment and dug out her driver’s license and credit card.

“Don’t you have a purse?” Heather asked.

“I’m not usually in purse-necessary situations.”

“I thought moms were supposed to carry big purses with first-aid kits and packets of Cheerios.”

Georgie scowled at her.

“You’re practically homeless,” Heather said, “aren’t you? If Neal doesn’t come back, you’re gonna have to forage for food and water.”

Georgie shoved the phone and cards into her pocket. “We’re not wasting time here,” she said. “There won’t be any hanging out at the Orange Julius, scamming for hot guys.”

“I’m not twelve, Georgie.”

“In and out. We get the bra, we get a new battery for my phone, then we’re out of there.”

“Are you buying me a new phone? Because I think I’d rather have an iPad.”

“Who said I was buying you a phone?”

“It was implied. Besides, Mom says you’re good for it.”

“Just hurry. I don’t want to miss Neal.”

“Jingle Bell Rock” was playing inside the mall, and inside the store, and inside the dressing room in the Intimates Department.

There was already a jumble of bras on the floor, and Georgie was trying on more, facing away from the mirror. She was so distracted, she kept forgetting to pay attention to which ones fit.

Just pick one, Georgie. Or buy them all. It doesn’t matter. You’re just killing time.

Jesus, what a weird time to kill time. The fate of her future hung in the balance, and there was nothing she could do at the moment but run out the clock. At least, not until Neal called back.

He would call back, right?

What if he didn’t, what if he was too angry? What if he was still angry tomorrow morning?

Georgie had to talk to Neal, to make things right again. She had to make sure that he still got into his car tomorrow, his tomorrow, and showed up at her door on Christmas Day.

But what if he didn’t?

Did Georgie really believe that the last fifteen years would just unravel? Had she committed so completely to this bizarre scenario that she thought her marriage was going to start fading out, like Marty McFly in the middle of “Earth Angel”?

What else could she think? She had to keep playing along—the stakes were too high.

If Neal didn’t show up to propose to her in 1998 . . .

Twenty-two-year-old Georgie would never know what she was missing. That girl thought it was already over, that she’d already lost him.

Georgie collapsed that week after Neal left for Omaha.

She spent the whole time in a fog. Lying in her bed, deliberately not calling him. Why should she call him? What was she supposed to say—sorry? Georgie wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t sorry that she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wasn’t sorry that she was making it happen.

It’s not like Neal was offering her some compelling alternate plan: “Georgie, I want to be a sheep farmer—it’s in my blood, and I can’t do it anywhere but Montana.” (Was that where sheep were farmed?) “I need you. Come with me.”

No, Neal was just saying, “I hate it here, I hate this. I hate that you want this.”

All he was offering Georgie were negatives.

And then he’d taken even those off the table. He’d left without her—broken up with her on his way out of town.

Georgie had genuinely believed they were broken up.

For the first few days that Neal was gone, she felt it like an actual breach between her ribs, a tear at the bottom of her lungs. Georgie would wake up in a panic sure that she’d run out of air—or that she’d lost the ability to hold it inside of her.

Then the breath would hit her like a baseball to the heart.

The air was right there; she just had to think about it. In, out. In, out. She wondered if she was going to have to spend the rest of her life reminding herself to breathe. Maybe that would be her internal monologue from now on. In, out. In, out.

Neal didn’t call to apologize to Georgie that week, either.

Why should he? she thought at the time. What did he have to apologize for? For not wanting exactly what Georgie wanted? For realizing what his limitations were?

Good for him for knowing himself so well.

Good for him for figuring it out.

Neal loved her, Georgie knew that. He couldn’t keep his hands off her—he couldn’t keep his ink off her; he was always doodling on her stomach or her thigh or her shoulder. He kept a set of Prismacolor markers by his bed, and when Georgie took a shower, the water ran rainbows.

She knew Neal loved her.

Good for him for realizing it wasn’t enough to make him happy. That was very mature of him. He was probably saving them both a lot of heartache.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

In-out, in-out, in-out.

Stay with me, stay-ay.

By that Christmas morning, Georgie hadn’t made any emotional progress from the breakup. She wasn’t feeling any better or stronger.

She was pretty sure that every Christmas from then on would be tainted by Neal leaving. Like Georgie would never be able to hear “Jingle Bells” again without feeling Neal drive away from her with a tow chain in her stomach.

Seth kept calling to check on her, but she didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to hear him tell her how much better off she was without Neal.

Georgie wasn’t better off. Even if Neal was right—even if they’d never make it work together, even if they were fundamentally wrong for each other—she still wasn’t better off without him. (Even if your heart is broken and attacking you, you’re still not better off without it.)

Her mom made Georgie come out to the living room Christmas morning to watch Heather open her presents. Heather was three, just old enough to understand that everything under the tree was for her. Georgie sat on the couch in flannel pajama pants and a ratty T-shirt, and ate pancakes with her fingers.

Kendrick was there. He was still new then. He brought Georgie a movie-theater gift certificate with a bow on it. Heather got a talking Teletubby, which she was currently spazzing out over.

He—Kendrick, not the Teletubby—kept trying to talk to Georgie, and he was trying so hard, Georgie didn’t have the heart to ignore him. (But she didn’t have any heart at all, so that made conversation difficult.) When the doorbell rang, Kendrick jumped up to answer it, probably just to get away from Georgie.

“It’s your friend Neal,” he said when he came back to the living room.

“You mean Seth,” she said.

Kendrick scratched his goatee—he used to have a ridiculous goatee—“Neal’s the little one, right?”

Georgie set down her plate and got off the couch.

“Why didn’t you invite him in?” her mom asked Kendrick.

“He said he’d rather wait outside.”

Georgie didn’t believe it was Neal. She couldn’t believe it was Neal. First of all, because Neal was in Omaha—he wouldn’t have skipped Christmas in Omaha. And second, because they were broken up. And third, because if Georgie did believe it was Neal, and then it turned out that it wasn’t? That might be it. That might finish her.

The front door was still open when she got there.

Neal was standing on the other side of the screen, biting his lip and squinting up her block, like he was waiting for her to come from the other direction.

Neal.

Neal, Neal, Neal.

Georgie’s hand trembled as she pushed the screen door open.

Neal turned to her, and his eyes got wide. Almost like he hadn’t let himself believe it was really going to be her.