Page 59 of Hilarina and the Ogre

Annette couldn’t believe they were going to the studio. “I thought we were watching Tokyo Godfathers.” It was another Christmas tradition, and more important for the fact that Trenton had never seen the film—a travesty.

“We’ll be back soon,” Hilary warned. “Don’t start without us.”

“Fine. We’ll watch Claus.”

Another perfect film.

“Don’t start that either!”

“Then what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know—you’re married, aren’t you?”

Albert looked at his wife and said, “I forget sometimes that we aren’t just his walking wallet. To think we actually have identity and autonomy outside of him.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Annette answered. “He’s still our overlord until next month when he turns eighteen. But Trenton, honey, you can be an overlord for however long you want. You don’t get an expiration date.”

Blatant favoritism. And he couldn’t even blame them. Trenton was his overlord too.

In the car, he was handed a final envelope.

“This had better not be another present.”

He was still reeling over his jar of stars. He could live another hundred Christmases and never manage to pay back the magnitude of that one.

“It’s not.”

So he opened the envelope and found a few sheets of listings. Used cars being sold in the area. “I love the Shitheap,” Trenton said. “And I’ll be inconsolable the day we have to retire her, but I think that day’s going to be soon.”

It was true. The poor girl had been on her last legs even before the move, only able to complete the long journey because a friend of Annette’s had towed her the last leg of the trip after the engine overheated. Every morning that it started up was a miracle, and it was only Trenton’s unique touch that had gotten them through some tight scrapes. It had gotten so bad, Annette had forbidden them from taking the Shitheap off the local roads. The last time they’d gone to the city, they’d used Albert’s car.

Hilary looked at the listings again. Trenton had done his due diligence. The cars were all reliable models, at decent prices, and with the promise of the cars’ full maintenance history available upon asking. But that didn’t change reality.

“I can’t afford any of these.”

That was an understatement. He couldn’t even afford gas for the Shitheap.

“You can,” Trenton corrected. “Except for these last two. We’ll need a couple more paychecks, but Mom and Dad said they could loan us the amount in the meantime if either of them were what you wanted.

On the very last page was a bank statement, with all of Trenton’s life savings—five years of working at the bookstore, though for the most part he’d only been there for pocket change and books to read. It was only in the last year or so that Mrs. Parson had finished paying off her mortgage and had finally been in a position to begin compensating Trenton for his labor. It was something she’d had to insist on, actually, as he'd been more than happy enough to continue working only for the sake of his beloved books.

But the money part was almost a distraction from the main lightning strike. “That’s the first time you’ve called them that.”

It wasn’t quite true. Trenton had been using the terms ‘mom and dad’ directly to their faces, but never when it was just the two of them alone together.

Trenton shrugged. “It always felt too presumptuous before.”

“When did that change?”

“Just now, I think.”

They looked at each other, and Trenton pushed the papers closer until they were touching Hilary’s chest. “You won’t say anything like I can’t take it, right?”

“You said it wasn’t a present.”

“Because it isn’t. We’ll be living together so we’ll be sharing the car. Hilary, everything I have is yours. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise.”

If their lives were going to overlap—if they were going to be, in a sense, partners in everything, then no, it didn’t make sense to partition things. And the feeling wasn’t new. Hilary realized he’d been thinking of their resources as pooled for a long time already.