“Oh God, don’t worry about that—that’s not your job.”
Mason shrugged. His hands were in his coat pockets. “Well . . .”
“He says you shovel the walk, so the mailman can get up to the porch.”
“Only if your dad hasn’t come by.”
“Well, that’s still nice of you. Thanks.”
“It’s nothing. I didn’t do it to impress you.”
Reagan made a face. “Why would you do it to impress me?”
“I . . .” Mason was probably making a face that she couldn’t see. “That’s what I’m saying.”
“Anyway,” she grumbled, “I’m not that impressed.” Reagan should go inside. She should sit on her grandparents’ couch and scroll Instagram and silently judge everyone she knew for having big-ass family dinners. “So you work from home?” she asked. “I mean, remotely?”
“Yeah,” Mason said.
“What do you do?”
“I fact-check audio content for news websites.”
“That does not seem like a job a real person would have.”
He laughed into his mask. “My eight-year-old self would be mortified, but it’s interesting work.”
“What did your eight-year-old self want to be?”
“Professional rodeo cowboy. What about you?”
“Oh, my eight-year-old self would be thrilled with my life. She just wanted to get the hell out of Arnold.”
Mason laughed some more. He leaned against his deck railing. Reagan took half a step back from hers.
“You live in Lincoln,” he said, “right? What do you do?”
“Accounting. For the Department of Agriculture.”
“You like it?”
“It’s fine. I can do it from home. I’m lucky,” she said—because you had to say that, that you were lucky you could be careful. Even though most people around Reagan who could be careful weren’t.
“Yeah, me, too,” Mason said, nodding.
The conversation died again. He was looking down at the ground between their decks.
“I don’t feel lucky,” Reagan said out loud.
He looked up. “Yeah? Me, neither.”
She couldn’t really see him. It was dark, and he was wearing a fabric mask that sat high on his face, under his glasses. She hadn’t taken a good look at him before he put it on. He had longish hair, with a little bit of wave to it, but she couldn’t tell what color. He was taller than her, probably. Nondescript in his baggy jeans and heavy canvas coat. She wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a lineup, even if it happened right this moment. He could be anybody.
“I am hiding,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m hiding out here. My brother and his family came over after dinner. To exchange gifts. And we were all supposed to stay outside. But it was cold. And . . .” He shook his head. “It felt ridiculous. To be out on the porch, standing six feet apart. So my mom said, ‘This is stupid, just come in,’ and they did.”
“And you came out here?”
“I did.”
“What did you tell your family?”
“I didn’t say anything. I just walked right through the house, out the back door.”
“Are they going to be mad at you?”
“Maybe. They won’t mention it, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t do that. We’re stoic, Germanic types—inscrutable plainsmen. Aren’t you?”
“No,” Reagan said. “My family is very scrutable. Our closest neighbors growing up were five miles away, and they could still hear my sister and me fighting.”
“Well . . . Nobody will say anything. If I go back in.”
“If?”
“Well, my brother’s family just broke down our wall, you know? They crossed our perimeter.”
“I do know.”
“Any one of them could have Covid. They have three kids—kids don’t even get symptoms half the time. They could be giving my parents Covid right now.”
“Probably not.”
“How do you know what’s probable?” He raised his voice and his shoulders. “How does anyone? It’s like—the air in there is different now. And if I go back in, I’m part of it. I keep thinking about all the terrible things that could happen from this moment on. Taking care of my parents. Taking care of myself. You can’t even visit someone in the hospital, you know?”