Even the cruelest and most random moments of the turbulent past year and a half failed to upset the fragile stability they found that snowy night, exactly 729 days ago, in some shabby Italian restaurant in some equally shabby track mall. She was in rare form, babbling sweetly – in hushed tones; for all its dilapidation, the restaurant was undulating with working-class Christmas Eve romance – into his ear.

She was, he reasoned, still high on the adrenaline that washed over the two of them when his new Lexus spun off the road and into a snowbank – where it was fated to remain until the roads were properly cleared and salted.  They wanted to interpret every extraordinary thing as fate drawing them (back) together, as some force telling them that everything would be okay. If only they would only almost die whenever their relationship seemed beyond resuscitation.

She ordered french fries (somewhere near the end of the menu with stuff like friend chicken, just in case) and a glass of red wine. He ordered red wine, too, but spent the next several hours, until the only other patrons were two drunkards attempting courtship, watching her and worrying that the snow would eventually stop.