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sad?” I asked, following her.
    I expected some acknowledgment of what I’d asked (maybe just an anti-romantic Nia crack), but even though we were only separated by a few feet, Nia seemed not to have heard me. Just as I was about to repeat my question, she gave a shout of discovery and pointed. On its side, wedged between an old phonograph and a marble-topped dresser table, was a box.
    From the way Nia struggled to lift it, I could see it was heavy—I was about to offer to help when she said, without turning around, “Don’t even offer, Hal Bennett. Yes, it’s heavy. Yes, I can handle it.”
    â€œOh. Well, great then.” I stepped back as she gently shifted it forward and back several times, finally freeing it from where it had been trapped, getting it up on a corner and lifting it onto the vanity table.
    â€œWow,” Callie said, reaching out a finger to stroke the ink-black wood.
    â€œVery wow,” Nia agreed.
    â€œSeriously wow,” I offered, ever helpful.
    At first glance, the box seemed to be fine-grained black wood decorated here and there with turquoise, sometimes set directly into the wood, sometimes set into elaborate sunbursts of silver or mother-of-pearl. To my eye it looked slightly Native American, but that might have just been the turquoise. I stepped toward the box and went to open it, and it was only as I felt around for a lid or drawer that I realized there wasn’t one.
    â€œUm, Louise,” Callie called.
    As if she’d been hovering, waiting for us to call on her for help, Louise’s reflection appeared in the mirror above the vanity. She looked at us looking at the box.
    â€œDid you say . . . I mean, is this a box box?” Callie asked.
    â€œYou mean as opposed to what? A shoe box?” Her question wasn’t exactly friendly, but the tone was gentle, teasing. I got the sense she was relieved that we were standing together around the box.
    â€œShe means does it open?” asked Nia. Her voice was pleasant, for Nia, but just as she finished asking, her phone buzzed angrily, like it was going to express the irritation Nia was holding in check. Nia looked to see who was calling, then blanched slightly. “Hi, Mama,” she said, flipping it open. She stepped away from us quickly, but I could still hear her mom’s angry flood of Spanish if not her exact words.
    â€œSorry,” Nia said, her voice truly contrite. “I lost track of time.”
    Uh oh. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and saw I’d missed three calls. It was late enough that I didn’t have to wonder who’d called me.
    My ass was grass.
    Maybe because her dad’s not exactly in the running for concerned parent of the year, Callie was the only one of the three of us who didn’t seem panicked by the fact that we weren’t home yet. Instead of clutching anxiously at her phone like it was about to ground her of its own volition, Callie had her face inches away from the box, which she was studying intently.
    â€œHal, look at this.”
    I moved over to where she was standing and got close to the box, like she was. And suddenly I saw why she’d been so amazed.
    The wood wasn’t fine-grained, as I’d thought at first. There was no grain at all. Instead, what I’d assumed was the pattern of a grain was actually a pattern cut into wood. The pattern was wild and more intricate than anything I’d ever seen. It looked like leaves and vines with creatures on them, but in the dim light of the store I couldn’t make out exactly what I was seeing.
    â€œIt’s beautiful,” Callie whispered. She stood up and put her hands on the box, looking off into the near distance as she felt around the wood. “I can’t find a way to open it, though.”
    Nia came back to where we were standing, snapping her phone shut in irritation. “Okay, I’m toast. My mom just gave me three minutes to get home, meaning I have