“Joan,” he told her, “you need help.” He had been talking to her friend Mary. “You’re not in control of your life.”

Joan looked at Charlie. Waiting for takeoff, she had been thinking about things like earthquakes, death squads, cyclones, and tidal waves. She had been reviewing her notes on disease, drought, famine, flood, and war. She said, “I didn’t know we were supposed to be in control.”

For the sake of Charlie and the girls, Joan agreed to seek professional help. On the advice of her therapist, she gave the Guatemala bag and the dress from Bangladesh to her friend Mary, steadfastly ignoring the tingle and pull in her fingertips as she handed them over, one by one. When she shopped, she checked labels carefully, also on the advice of the therapist, and she always bought American. If other people in her twelve-step program for addictive personalities started coming to group with jute-paper notebooks and Guatemala bags, well, that was hardly her fault. Joan stayed away from the import store, even after her friend Mary took a volunteer job as manager there. Joan saw her friend through the storefront window one day, arranging a display of Laotian needlework. Mary was wearing the dress from Bangladesh.

If other people in her twelve-step program for addictive personalities started coming to group with jute-paper notebooks and Guatemala bags, well, that was hardly her fault.

As the therapist predicted, Joan’s recovery was swift. Before long, she was able to frequent the supermarket without an escort, having found that she could buy bananas, sugar, meat, even boycotted products, with impunity once again. When Christmastime approached, Joan did all her shopping at the mall, which is where she found the alpaca sweater for Charlie, in a store bedecked with Stars and Stripes and eagles — as well as holly — that called itself American Sport. The “Made in Peru” on the label gave her pause, it’s true, but when she touched the sweater and felt no electric tingle, no mountain cold, no aching belly, no fear of armed guards sweeping into the village — nothing but luxurious softness — she knew she must be cured. To be on the safe side, she had it gift-wrapped on the spot.

Charlie loved it. “I’ve wanted one of these for years,” he said. He pulled the sweater over his head, stroked the soft wool, and then stopped.

In the glow of the lights from the Christmas tree, Joan said, “Is something wrong?”

Charlie frowned. He moved his shoulders up and down as if he had an itch. “I don’t know,” he said. “I felt something.