If the Fates Allow

by Rainbow Rowell

If you could only spend Christmas with one person, no one in her family would pick her. (No one in the world would pick her.)

No one called Reagan for comfort. No one called Reagan to offer any. No one ever said, “I’m lonely, could you come by?”—and no one ever came by. Even before this bullshit.

“Your grandmother would want us to say grace,” he said, after they’d piled up their plates. “Hmm.” Reagan was noncommittal. She’d already taken a bite of turkey. “But if she wanted me to keep saying grace,” he went on, “she should have outlived me.”

“Pfft. Levi’s fine. He’s got a wife and three kids and fifty bison.” She still talked to Levi once a week, even though they broke up in college. (Reagan didn’t let many people into her life—but once she’d gone to the effort, she didn’t like to let go of them.)

He was so close, she could see his chest moving. He reached up, slowly, with his free hand, and tugged his mask back into place over his nose. Reagan watched him through the fog of her own breath. Then she reached up, with her own free hand, to touch his cloth-covered cheek. He didn’t move away. She pulled his mask down. Slowly. Deliberately. Under his soft chin. Mason watched her face. He wasn’t smiling, but she could still see his two front teeth. Reagan made a fist in the suede collar of his coat and pulled herself closer to him. His head dipped forward, more fiercely than she was expecting, to kiss her.

(She didn’t need people the way other people needed people, but she still needed . . . something.)

“I’m tired of waiting for it to get better, honey. It feels like we should all get together before it gets worse.”

“Sometimes I think you don’t want to get back to normal, Reagan. Sometimes I think you like it better this way.” Sometimes Reagan agreed with her.

“This Jell-O salad has served its purpose, don’t you think?” He held up the pan. Reagan looked down at it. She took it from him and set it behind her. As soon as it was out of the way, Mason was pushing up, over her lap, to kiss her. He’d turned so that he was kneeling on one stair, with his other leg stretched behind him.

The pandemic had changed her. She’d gotten a lot pickier about who she let get this close. She’d gotten kind of fixated on repercussions.

Same

“Put on the jacket, so I can kiss you again without feeling guilty.”

I’m deceased