Joe Schreiber - Perry's killer playlist

I wanted to say, “Dad, wait.”

I wanted to ask him what really happened with Paula. I wanted to hear his side of the story. There had to be a reason for what he’d done, right?

Someday I want to hear it.

“You coming downstairs?” Mom asked. “Your sister’s making hot cocoa and she wants to watch Elf. ”

I glanced up from the computer. “Maybe in a while.” It was Christmas Eve, and I was not much in the holiday spirit despite a prediction of scattered flurries tonight and Death Cab for Cutie on the radio doing their version of “Baby Please Come Home.”

I looked down at the online application for next fall’s admission to UCLA. It was only half finished, and I didn’t have the strength to seek out one more letter of recommendation. I knew I had to finish it, though. It was time to move forward, to aim past it and punch through. I thought maybe California was far enough away to get a new start.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Mom said. “This came for you.”

I looked at the envelope she’d dropped on my desk. There was no return address. I looked at the blurry postmark. It looked like Fiji.

I tore it open.

It was a Christmas card from the Hotel Schoeneweiss, showing a huge crowd of men and women in Santa suits trying to climb a wooden pole in the annual ClauWau competition in Zermatt. Inside was blank, except for two lines of block print at the bottom.

NEW LOCATION FOR THE HOTEL. ONLY ONE GUEST SO FAR. SHE HAS ASKED TO SEE YOU NEXT TIME YOU ARE IN THE ISLANDS.

It was initialed with the letters ES.

I tucked it in my desk along with my passport, slid the drawer shut, and went downstairs to the smell of hot cocoa, to join Annie and my mom.