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tension escalated.
    â€œNo, thanks,” Paul said.
    â€œWhy not? It’s fun.”
    â€œWhy should I?” Paul said. “I’d be very surprised if what it says in the cookie bears the slightest relationship to my actualfuture, considering it was written fifty years ago by a man in China who never met me and who’s probably dead by now.”
    â€œThat’s not the point,” Carl said. “It’s fate.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œWhat cookie you get.”
    â€œThere’s only one left,” Paul said. “What choice do I have?”
    â€œThen that’s the one that was meant for you.”
    â€œIf I don’t want one,” Paul said, “that’s fate too.”
    â€œNo,” Carl said, “that’s free will. Fate is why you have to open your cookie.”
    â€œI don’t
have
to open my cookie if I don’t
want
to. I don’t
have
to do anything.”
    â€œThen I’ll open it for you,” Carl said, reaching for the plate. Paul managed to grab the last cookie before Carl could.
    â€œIt’s my cookie, right?” he said. He picked it up, crossed the lounge, and asked the young mother if her little boy would like a treat. She thanked Paul, took the cellophane bag from him, tore it open, and handed the cookie to her three-year-old, who turned it over and over before taking a bite, the fortune falling to the floor with the other half of the cookie. The young mother picked up the crumbs from the floor, glanced at the fortune briefly, and then threw it in the wastebasket, her child too young to appreciate it.
    â€œThere,” Paul said, returning to the table. “Apparently fate wanted him to have it.”
    Bits rolled her eyes, having witnessed similar scenes countless times. Carl scowled and said nothing, but Paul knew that deep down, Carl wanted to go dig the little strip of paper out of the wastebasket and read it. Paul foiled him by helping Bits clean up and dumping their leftovers into the wastebasket on top of the fortune.
    When Bits offered to give him a ride to their parents’ house, he told her he’d ride with Beverly.
    â€œYou go on ahead. I think I’ll stay here one more night,” Beverly said. “The chair in your father’s room folds out. It’s really quite comfortable. If you’d just check when you get home to make sure I didn’t leave anything plugged in …”
    â€œI already checked, Mom,” Bits said. “We’ll be fine. I have my key.”
    â€œI’ll be home to change clothes before church,” Beverly said, gathering up her coat and purse. “I think everybody needs to get some sleep.”
    They walked her to Harrold’s room. Paul was surprised to note, as he leaned in to kiss his father good night on the forehead, that Harrold had tears running down both his cheeks.
    â€œThe nurse said that’s just a neurological response,” Bits told him. “Supposedly it has nothing to do with how he’s feeling.”
    â€œSupposedly,” Paul said. As Beverly used a tissue to dry her husband’s eyes, Paul realized it was the first time he’d ever seen his father cry.

3
Brrzzlfft!
    A s his sister drove, Paul stared out the window. The city had changed since he’d moved away, but mostly at the extremities, where its distant suburbs continued to expand into the surrounding farmland, and at the center, the downtown area where commerce and culture collided. Between the center and the outskirts, it all looked much the same. They passed his old high school, which Bits said was now a school for the performing arts, attracting kids from all over the city. Paul saw the alleyway where he used to get high before homeroom. He recalled the day he thought the pot he’d smoked was oregano or Minnesota ditch weed, a rip-off, then realized, as the bell rang, that he’d been reading and rereading the first sentence of