The Chosen girl rises, cupping the ornament — a red, metallic heart — in her outstretched hand, her mouth opening on a question she can’t seem to ask.
“They’re not coming,” Rose declares, her voice breaking with emotion. “She’s having an operation. An operation on her thighs.”
The Chosen girl says nothing, just stares at Rose with that look of patient suffering that never seems to leave her face.
“She can’t hear you,” the little one explains.
Of course she can’t, Rose realizes. She’s suddenly aware of an immense silence in the world, a vast cosmic hush pressing down from the sky, drifting to earth in little pieces, an illusion only shattered when the Chosen girl sniffles and makes a horrible hawking sound in the back of her throat. The poor thing. She looks bedraggled, maybe a bit feverish. Her nose is runny and her kerchief’s soaked with melted snow. Her lips have taken on a faint bluish undertone. But still she stands there, holding that heart in the palm of her hand. It seems brighter than it did a moment ago, newly polished.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Rose tells the little one. “I’ll be right back.”
SHE ONLY means to run in, grab the coat, and hurry back outside, but it doesn’t work out that way. She’s barely through the door — the warmth of her house hits her like something solid — when she steps on a glass ball, crunching it underfoot, losing her balance and falling dreamily to the floor. She’s lying there, moaning softly to herself, trying to figure out if she’s broken anything, when the phone begins to ring. She knows it’s Russell even before she hears his voice coming through the answering machine, launching into a complicated, self-pitying apology, reminding her how busy he is and how many responsibilities he has to juggle, and how nice it would be if she could just cut him a little slack instead of trying to make him feel guilty all the time.
“I’m trying, Ma. Can you at least admit that I’m trying?”
Her cheek pressed against the nubby rug, Rose wiggles her fingers, then her toes. Everything seems to be in working order. She picks herself up from the floor, dusts off her pants, and takes a few careful steps toward the closet, where the Sharks jacket is hanging. She slips it off the hanger, pleased by its bulk, only to realize that the price tag is still attached. The scissors should be right on the floor with the tape and the wrapping paper, but they’ve disappeared. Rose checks the kitchen and hallway before giving up and removing the tag with her teeth. By the time she tiptoes around the broken glass and steps outside, the girls have already gone.
Rose makes her way down to the curb to look for them, but the street is empty in both directions. Even though she’s standing right in front of it, she needs a second or two to register the fact that her Christmas tree is no longer lying on the ground like garbage. It just looks so natural the way it is now, standing upright in the snowbank, the remaining ornaments clinging stubbornly to its branches, that it’s hard to imagine that it could ever have been otherwise.
THE STORM continues all night, but the tree is still standing on Sunday morning, its branches cupping soft mounds of powder, when Rose sets off in search of the Chosen girl. She’s wearing her skirt and sweater again, but this time she cheats a little in deference to the blizzard — galoshes, a fleece jacket under the sweater, a woolen hat instead of the rain bonnet. She’s got the Sharks jacket stuffed into a red handlebag from Macy’s, along with her best winter gloves and a blue-and-green-plaid scarf.
The walk is longer and more treacherous than she anticipated — almost no one has shoveled yet — and she doesn’t reach her destination until a few minutes after nine. She feels weak, a bit disoriented. There’s nothing about the Chosen house that marks it as a place of worship. No cross, no sign, no parking lot. Just a shabby gray Colonial with cracked asphalt shingles and a boarded-up attic window tucked between the Quik-Chek and the Army Recruiting Center on a busy stretch of Grand Avenue.
Rose doesn’t imagine outsiders are welcome at the service, and her determination falters. Maybe I should stand here until it’s over, she thinks. Give the girl the bag on her way out, tell her parents not to let her out of the house without a coat anymore. But then she notices the freshly cleared and sanded walk leading up to the front steps, the two shovels resting against the porch railing, and it all comes back to her: the girl’s blank face, her chattering teeth and chapped hands, her soggy kerchief and snow-crusted sneakers. And deaf on top of that.
You poor thing. It’s a sin the way they treat you.
And now she’s doing it, not even thinking, just marching up the steps, feeling strong and purposeful, reaching for the doorknob. Pulling it open. Stepping inside. The warmth and the faces. Oh my.
Rose has never seen anything quite like this. The floor is bare. No curtains on the windows. The Chosen are seated in folding chairs in a large, otherwise empty room, the men and boys in business suits on one side, the women and girls in kerchiefs and long skirts on the other, each one more drab-looking than the next. There are more of them than Rose realized — the room is packed, the air a bit close — and all their faces are turned in her direction, their expressions welcoming, as if they’ve been expecting her. A tall, bearded man rises and relieves her of the bag.
“It’s for the girl,” Rose whispers. “So she won’t be cold.”
“Thank you.” The man is wiry and hungry-looking, his suit jacket a little short in the sleeves.
Rose’s errand is done and she knows she should be going, but the bearded man is guiding her with one hand toward an empty chair on the women’s side, as though she’s an invited guest.
“Sit,” he tells her.
Rose obeys. She feels suddenly exhausted, incapable of arguing or facing the cold outside. The woman beside her, whom Rose recognizes from the Stop & Shop, greets her with a quiet nod. The Chosen girl and her sister are sitting two rows ahead, a little to the right. The girl glances at Rose, her eyes crinkling with worry. She looks a lot better than she did yesterday, her hair freshly washed, her kerchief bright and dry. Rose smiles back, clenching and unclenching her hands to speed their thawing.
As if a secret signal’s been given, the Chosen all turn to face forward, though there’s nothing in front of them but a blank white wall. After a moment or two, a soft murmur rises in the room, a strange melodic mumbling that fills the air like background noise at a party. It doesn’t grow louder, and it doesn’t die out; it just keeps winding around and around on itself, never resolving, repeating the same uncertain notes of praise and lament. Rose closes her eyes and listens closely. Hard as she tries, she can’t quite decide if it’s a prayer or a song she’s hearing, or just a lot of people muttering to themselves. All she really knows — and it comes to her as something of a surprise — is that her own lips are moving, too, her voice blending in with everyone else’s, the words tumbling out of her like she’s known them all her life.
The Test-Taker 
THE TEXT ARRIVED LATE ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, AT the last possible minute.
Tomorrow morning, it said.
I cursed under my breath. I’d been planning on getting drunk that night, but work was work, and Kyle expected us to be available. You’d have to have a pretty good excuse for saying no, an infectious disease or a death in the immediate family. A potential hangover wasn’t going to cut it.
I stopped by his house around five to find out who I was and where I was going. Kyle was a junior at MIT, but he ran his business from home, while also doing his laundry.