Heaven Should Fall

smoke from four packs of Marlboros into the air. You’re getting up at four-thirty to milk cows in the bitchin’ cold because hey, you’re home, they expect you to pitch in like you always did before.”

“I don’t mind milking cows. Or the cold.”

“You’d hate it. Hate it like death.”

“I wouldn’t. It’s no different from what I’ve done every summer since I was thirteen.”

“You don’t know cold until you’ve lived in New England. And spending the holidays with my family would be hell. Believe me, Jill. Especially my brother-in-law. He’s King Jackass of the Universe.” He got out of bed, still wearing nothing but his watch and his boxers, and took a Mountain Dew out of the minifridge.

“I’ve got to meet them sometime,” I said. “And it’s depressing to be alone over Christmas. It really is, Cade.”

“You can go visit Dave, right? That’s what you did last year.”

“I could, but I was hoping to spend it with you. It seems kind of lame to go hang out with my old camp counselor while my fiance is off with his family.” I sat up and pulled my T-shirt over my head. “It’s not normal.”

Cade laughed again. “Neither is my family.”

“Nobody’s is. Everybody thinks that.”

Still holding the soda can, he made a gesture with his arm that said, I’ll give you that one. But along with it he added, “Let me put it differently, then. I don’t want you to come.”

I glared at him. “Wow.”

“Don’t start yelling at me. I’m doing both of us a favor. You and I don’t need to be trapped in a farmhouse on the Maine border with a bunch of crazy people. You think it’s going to be some cozy Christmas reunion, but really it’s going to be like a Stephen King movie. I know it, and you don’t, and so it’s my job to spare you.”

“How are we supposed to get married if I don’t ever meet your family?”

“That’s not the question. The question is why you’d still want to marry me once you do meet them.”

“Oh, Cade.”

I rolled over and crumpled the pillow beneath my chin. Against the cheap little side table his BlackBerry vibrated—once, twice, three times. It never stopped for long. I swallowed hard and tried to force myself to believe he meant well. He wasn’t hiding anything, except whatever it was that he found embarrassing about them. It was at times like this that I wished my mother were still around. I could ask her whether it was right to trust that he would come around to it on his own time, or if he was treating me poorly and I needed to call him on it. But in her absence it all hovered in my mind as a formless question. When she died, the one small consolation had been that at least I was eighteen, an adult, not the child I had been just eight months before. But the longer she was gone, the more I knew I needed her now as much as ever, and that there was nothing merciful in losing my mother just as I was trying to figure out how to be an adult woman myself. I’d thought it would get easier over time, but three years later, I was still waiting.

* * *

As soon as he finished his last final exam, just days before Christmas, Cade left for New Hampshire. He insisted on going alone to face his parents and siblings and King Jackass of the Universe himself. Thanks to my arrangement with the university—necessary, given that I didn’t have a home—I had permission to stay in my dorm over winter break, but I moved into Cade’s room for the week anyway. Sleeping in his bed made me feel less alone, and the quad in which he lived was noisier, making me feel less like a straggler left behind on Christmas.

Technically I wasn’t supposed to be there. The resident director of Cade’s dorm, Hagerstown Hall, tolerated my presence because she knew about me and figured that since I could sleep in only one room at night, it didn’t matter whether it was my dorm or Cade’s. The only other person staying on the guys’ side of the floor was Drew Fielder. Cade always treated the guy with barely repressed hostility, but around him I tried to be friendly—after all, Stan seemed to like the guy well enough, or at least tolerated him as part of the regular Rocky Horror group. Cade’s attitude toward him struck me as a little childish, and it seemed to me that a guy with social skills as strong as Cade’s would know that it doesn’t pay to make enemies.

On Christmas Eve, Hagerstown 6 was deserted. I sat on Cade’s bed with my laptop balanced on my knees and Lockup: Raleigh on low in the background, a cup of powdery hot cocoa leaving a wet ring on the table beside me. I was musing on whether to email Dave and ask him if I could drive down to see him the next day; the thought of his judgment of Cade inhibited me, but the loneliness made it tempting even so. Down the hall the elevator door thunked open, followed by the squee squee squee of loafers on tile. A shadow fell over me, and I looked up. It was Drew, of course, leaning one shoulder against the doorway in his shirtsleeves and pinstripes, top button undone. He looked at me with his weird uncertain smile, a petulant curl of his upper lip. His hair, misted by the rain, curled toward the crown of his head like a cool-cat lounge singer’s.

“Did your boyfriend abandon you?”

I shook my head. “He’s up in New Hampshire with his family.”

“Sounds like abandonment to me.”

“I’m fine.”

He jiggled his knee through the awkward pause. Then he asked, “You want to order some Chinese or something?”

I blurted a laugh. “Chinese? On Christmas Eve?”

“Sure. My family does it every year. Nothing else is open, after all.”

“Why don’t you guys just have ham and sweet potatoes and whatever else everybody eats on Christmas Eve?”

“We’re Jewish.”

“Oh.” I tapped a finger against the side of my laptop, considering. It wouldn’t be difficult to make an excuse to get rid of Drew, but if I spent some time with him, maybe I could get some insight that would help Cade learn to deal with him. And the fact was, I was bored and lonely. And I did feel abandoned, after all.

“Sure, yeah,” I said. “Do you have a menu?”

* * *

We set up the cartons on the table in the lounge. Drew set the TV to a Seinfeld rerun. “Jewish Christmas,” he said. “A little bit fun and a little bit depressing.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Don’t you have family or anything?”

“Not really.” I watched him root around in the carton and produce a piece of shrimp. “I thought shellfish weren’t kosher,” I added.

“I don’t keep kosher.”

I offered him a slow grin. “You’re a Jewish Republican who doesn’t keep kosher. That’s original.”

“I’m not a Republican. God, no.”

“But you work for Bylina.”

“Yeah. I’m an opportunist.”

Seinfeld broke to commercial. A jangling advertising tune came on, several notches louder than the regular TV volume. Drew cracked open his soda, watching me as he drank from it. Whenever I’d been around him in the past, Stan’s friendliness toward him had led me to see Drew as harmless, if slightly arrogant, with a mild case of social awkwardness. But here, alone with him, the vibe he gave off had more of an edge to it. The arrogance was still there, but it felt creepier.

“Well,” I said when the volume died down, “why don’t you go to work for somebody who shares your views? Somebody who’s working on issues you believe in? That’s the point of being in politics, isn’t it? To make a positive change in the world.”

He eased back in his chair and set down his soda can. “Are you asking me to pull out so Cade can get the job?”

“No, I’m just asking why you’d even want it when you could get the same job working for somebody whose convictions are in line with yours.”

“I might pull out. It’s possible.”