"It's an old building," Becky said, when Peter asked her. "Do you get them in your apartment, too?" She'd given him a look, then, as if she thought he was trying to score an invite into her place, as ... [+]
Not long after she moved – ties cut, no looking back, he'd never find her on that side of town anyway, if he bothered to look – she found a string of Christmas lights at the thrift store when she went looking for a lamp. She hauled the paper bag up to the counter and they let her plug the tail end into the power strip they kept there. The paper bag lit up like a jar of multicolored lightning bugs. She briefly recalled chasing them around her front yard as a child. She'd captured one and tore off its luminescent rear and balanced it on her left-hand ring finger."Look, I'm married! I'm married!"