“Fate, to me, simply means that all the billions of microscopic actions we can’t calculate lead to consequences that feel right because they are right. They fit, they follow. We can’t see and understand all the causes behind everything, but I think it’s more magical to accept that they’re there than it is to believe that they’re not, and that something called ‘fate’ is filling all that space instead.
“Whatever you call it, fate, not-fate—and I usually do just call this fate, by the way, just because it’s simpler, it sounds more optimistic, more true to the spirit of what I mean—it’s better branding—but whatever it was, something in your nature drew you to that cereal box in the store. The promise of bigger things, of brighter colors, better tastes. Curiosity. Chance. Fun. The promise of money. Hope. The feeling of being a part of the national experience—populism, you could call it; patriotism, you could call it. Then you were told that this cereal wasn’t something you could have—and you broke a rule. You broke several rules, and you never break rules—that’s how loud this called to you. I don’t believe it was fate that did this, to speak honestly, no. I believe it was bigger than that. Grander than that. Because these are drives that are in your blood—just the way that they’re in mine. If you were someone else’s son, these drives wouldn’t be in you, and you wouldn’t have been drawn to that box the way you were. These drives are not, with all due respect, in the blood of a philosophy professor who would say that he doesn’t believe in sugar cereals on principle. And I actually mean that phrase—‘with all due respect’—because I do respect it. It’s just not me. And it’s sure as hell not you. Because when you won the prize and then were told the prize wasn’t something you could have, that didn’t work for you. The exact same way it wouldn’t have worked for me. Something in your nature was telling you that the rules of your childhood home weren’t the rules of your life anymore. You broke those rules and then kept breaking them, because you wouldn’t let anything stand between you and what you knew you were destined to have. You followed an impulse. A chain of impulses. Impulses that were there for a reason. And now, here you are.
“Your parents lied, too, remember. They wouldn’t allow popular cereals into the house not because of the price or because they aren’t healthy—I could give you a stack of nutritional information comparing our cereals with the homemade pancakes you told me you eat several times a week—but because of the personal associations for them. And they wouldn’t let you claim your prize because they knew it would lead you to learn the truth. They knew that sweepstakes of this kind are never applicable for family members of company employees and that even the most perfunctory background check by the company, especially with a last name as distinct as yours—even Beverly, at the desk, whom I’ve known for twenty years, noticed it—would lead someone in some department to take notice and allow us—force us, by federal law—to not only deny you the prize, but also blow up this family mythology they already sacrificed so much in order to invent and protect. Look, I can’t blame them. You’re an extraordinary young person.
“So, as I’ve said, I can’t offer you the prize. But I can offer you something else.”
A part of me wondered if he was going to pull a dictionary down from the wall.
“You can be my son.”
He handed me a business card.
“Think it over. Think about who you are and how you see yourself going forward. And if it makes sense to you, give me a call. Don’t let your mother see this, of course.”
He shook my hand again, just as hard.
Tom leapt up off the couch when he saw me cross back into the lobby.
“What happened? How did it go?”
“It’s called the Promotions Department, idiot,” I said. “Not the Prize Department.”
On the bus ride back to Grand Rapids, I stared out the window for the hour and a half.
I imagined what Michigan would look like—or what it would feel like to look out at Michigan—if I were the kid of the executive, and then if I were just the kid of my family.
The two feelings felt very different.
I liked them both.
I liked the feeling of being able to switch back and forth in my mind, too.
I wished the bus ride were longer.
“How was Tom’s? How was pizza?”
I forgot all about the lie I had told my mother, that I was having pizza at Tom’s. It seemed quaint, and cozy, and sad.
“It was good.”
“What kind did you get?”
“Pineapple.”
“Yum! You have room for dessert?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’?” my mother laughed. “In case you want to have dessert with us!” I looked over into the kitchen and saw my dad in his sweater, making a pot of mint tea the way he always did after dinner.
I loved my parents so much.
“Go upstairs and put your things away,” said my mother. “It’ll be ready in about five. Ice cream sundaes.”
I went up to my room and took the business card out of my pocket. I noticed that it was now completely crumpled from how tightly I must have held it on the bus ride back.
I put the business card in the dictionary and came down for dessert.