Daniel.

He’s probably on a train on his way to his appointment. Will he do the proper thing and become a doctor after all? Will he think of me in the future and remember the girl he spent two hours with one day in New York? Will he wonder whatever happened to me? Maybe he’ll do a Google search using only my first name and not get very far. More likely, though, he’ll forget about me by this evening, as I will certainly forget about him.

The phone rings as I write, and she grabs it before it has a chance to ring twice.

“Oh my God, Jeremy. Are you all right?” She closes her eyes, cradles the phone with both hands, and presses it close to her face. “I wanted to come, but your wife said I should hold down the fort.” Her eyes flick open when she says the word wife.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” The more she listens, the brighter she becomes. Her face flushes and her eyes shine with happy tears.

She’s so obviously in love with him I expect to see heart bubbles floating around the room. Are they having an affair?

“I wanted to come,” she whispers again. After a series of murmured okays, she hangs up the phone. “He’s all right.” She beams. Her whole body is aglow with relief.

“That’s great,” I say.

She takes the forms from my hands. I wait as she reads through them.

“Would you like to hear some good news?” she asks.

Of course I would. I nod slowly.

“I’ve seen lots of cases like this, and I think you’ll be okay.”

I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but certainly not this.

“You really think he’ll be able to help?” I can hear the hope and skepticism in my own voice.

“Jeremy never loses,” she says, so proudly that she could be talking about herself.

But of course, that can’t be true. Everyone loses something sometime. I should ask her to be more precise, to give me an exact win/loss ratio so I can decide how to feel.

“There’s hope,” she says simply.

Even though I hate poetry, a poem I read for English class pops into my head. “Hope” is the thing with feathers. I understand concretely what that means now. Something inside my chest wants to fly out, wants to sing and laugh and dance with relief.

I thank her and leave the office quickly, before I can ask her something that takes away this feeling. Usually I fall on the side of knowing the truth, even if the truth is bad. It’s not the easiest way of being. Sometimes the truth can hurt more than you expect.

A few weeks ago my parents were arguing in their bedroom with the door closed. It was one of those rare occasions when my mom actually got angry with my dad to his face. Peter found me eavesdropping outside their door. After they were done arguing, I asked him if he wanted to know what I’d heard, but he didn’t. He said he could tell that whatever I learned was bad, and he didn’t really want any badness in his life just then. At the time I was annoyed with him. But later I thought maybe he’d been right. I wished I could unhear what I’d overheard.

Back in the hallway, I lean my forehead against the wall and hesitate. I debate going back into the office to press her for more details but decide against it. What good will it do? I might as well wait for the official word from the lawyer. Besides, I’m tired of worrying. I know that what she said is not a guarantee. But I need to feel something other than resigned dread. Hope seems like a good substitute.

I consider calling my parents to tell them about this new development, but then I don’t do that either. I have no new information to share. What would I say? A man I don’t know has sent me to see another man I don’t know. A paralegal, who is not a lawyer, whom I also don’t know, says everything might be all right. What’s the use in getting all our hopes up?

The person I really want to talk to is Daniel, but he’s long gone to his interview.

I wish I’d been nicer to him.

I wish I’d gotten his phone number.

What if this immigration nonsense resolves itself? If I get to stay, how will I find him again? Because no matter how much I pretended it didn’t exist, there was something between us. Something big.

HANNAH HAS ALWAYS THOUGHT OF herself as living in a fairy tale where she’s not the star. She’s neither the princess nor the fairy godmother. Neither the high, evil witch nor her familiar. Hannah is a minor character, illustrated for the first time on page twelve or thirteen. The cook, perhaps, presiding over crumpets and sugarplums. Or maybe she’s the handmaiden, good-natured and just out of view.

It wasn’t until she met and started working for Attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald that she imagined she could become the star. In him she recognized her One True Love. Her Happily-Ever-After. This despite the fact that he is a married man. Despite the fact that he’s a father to two young children.

Hannah never believed he would love her back until the day he did just that.

That day is today.

JEREMY FITZGERALD was crossing the street when a drunk and distraught man—an insurance actuary—in a white BMW hit him at twenty miles per hour. The blow wasn’t enough to kill him, but it was enough to make him consider his eventual death and his current life. It was enough to make him admit to himself that he was in love with his paralegal, Hannah Winter, and that he had been for some time now.

At some point later today, when he returns to his office, he will wordlessly take Hannah into his arms. He will hold her and wonder, very briefly, about the future that loving her will cost him.

Area Teenager Chooses Poorly

My mother, the pacifist, would kill me dead if she knew what I’d just done. I rescheduled my interview. For a girl. Not even a Korean girl, a black girl. A black girl I don’t really know. A black girl I don’t really know, who might not even like me.