Gina did not hesitate. Hesitation was death.
"Eventually? Five."
There was a pause. The boy with the gum took it out of his mouth to watch better.
And then the man laughed. It came out of him all at once, surprised, a real laugh with his head tipped back, and it changed his whole face. He looked younger. He looked like somebody who had not laughed like that in a while and had forgotten that he could.
"You don't have a nephew."
Gina leaned in. She did not let go of the box. She leaned in until their faces were inches apart, close enough that she could smell the snow on his coat and something underneath it, cedar and soap, close enough to see the little flecks of brown in the gray-green, close enough that if anyone from St. Barbara's parish had walked by at that moment they would have called her mother before they got to the end of the aisle.
"And you don't have a niece."
He opened his mouth. He closed it. He was still holding the box. So was she. Neither of them seemed to be breathing, and the colored bulbs along the top of the display case hummed, and somewhere behind them a toy train went around and around its little track, whistling at every turn.
That was when the cart arrived.