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His dad began. Shira focused not on his face but on Leo’s hands in his lap beside her, which were twisting at each other so badly she worried he might pull a finger off. “Leo, I’m so sorry you had to find out this way about my affair,” he said. “My actions are not a reflection of my love for you, which has never and will never change.”

Would it be weird to grab Leo’s hand to comfort him and maybe keep his fingers attached? What would the girl across the street say? What would Livvy say—or stab? Shira kept her hands in her lap, stealing a glance at Leo’s parents. His dad was beet red beneath his thinning dark hair, while his mom’s face, normally pale, was whiter than a hard-boiled egg.

She glanced at Leo’s dad before turning to Leo. Neither of them seemed to be waiting for a response from their only child. “I’m planning to fly out tomorrow morning to Grandpa’s,” Leo’s mom said. His grandfather, the husband of the grandma whose death had inspired Leo’s past 911 text, had moved back to Michigan after the death to be near his siblings and other children. “You’re welcome to come with me. If you want.”

That got a response. “Why are you leaving?” Leo flailed a hand toward his father, who flinched as if he’d been hit. “He should be leaving.”

“I want to leave,” said his mom, and Shira turned away so that she wouldn’t have to see Leo’s reaction. Her eyes caught on the menorah in the front window, dull brass and streaked with rainbow wax. “The only reason I moved to New Jersey was to be close to your father’s work in the city. I no longer want to be close to your father, so I no longer need to be close to the city.”

Leo’s dad flinched at that, which, good, he deserved it. Shira turned to Leo, whose eyes were sliding between his parents. “Are you coming back?”

“I don’t know yet,” said his mom. “Obviously, you’re the most important part of all this. I want the disruption to your life to be as minimal as possible.” Shira couldn’t help but snort at that, because fat chance. Fortunately her snort was quiet enough that neither of his parents heard. “I know I want to go out there to be with your grandpa and your aunts for at least a little while, and then we can discuss and decide together what comes next.”

What came next would be moving back, obviously. Because Leo couldn’t move away. He just couldn’t. The thought of living here without him two houses away was unfathomable. Like she’d woken up one morning and found that the sky was now red.

“I want to go, too,” said Leo grimly, and he stood, and Shira’s chest seized with something like panic. “I don’t want to be near him anymore, either.”

The room devolved into argument, harsh words swirling around Shira like she was at the center of a tornado. Leo’s dad was insisting that he hadn’t cheated on Leo, and Leo was spitting back that he’d cheated on the whole family, and Leo’s mom was telling them both that Leo was practically an adult and he could do what he liked, and Leo had tears in his eyes again like he was very much not an adult, like he didn’t want to be almost an adult, like he just wanted someone to hug him and tell him it was all going to be okay.

Shira’s place was definitely not here anymore. She didn’t think she could stand it. She slowly began to back out, but Leo stopped midsentence and turned to her. The winds stopped mid-whip. “I’ll text you,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

Of course, the second anyone said Don’t worry, Shira immediately started to worry. “Promise?” she said.

“I promise,” he said back, and then the corner of his mouth twisted in a half smile. “By the way,” he told her. “Happy Hanukkah.”

Outside, the empty, unlit menorah stood stark and alone in the front window. She took a deep breath of the cold air, freezing her lungs again, watching the wind flutter through his dad’s hydrangeas. Leo had promised. He’d told her not to worry. Of course he wouldn’t leave.

Something pulled taut in her chest like the string of a violin, already mourning.

Because of course Leo left with his mom, and of course he texted Shira, promising that a few flyover states between them wouldn’t stop them from being friends. And of course they did their best. But texting every day turned into texting every week turned into texting every month turned into the occasional birthday wish with apologies for being so out of touch. She got so busy with art stuff and school stuff and synagogue stuff that the catch-up phone call they kept promising each other never actually happened. And while Shira held her breath that first summer break, assuming and hoping he’d have to come visit his dad, he didn’t. Apparently he was old enough that the judge granting custody took his wishes into account, and while he was technically supposed to come stay with his dad on holiday breaks and for at least part of the summer, he refused.

Leo’s dad moved in his affair partner, who lasted about a year before her car unceremoniously disappeared from the driveway. He always waved at Shira whenever she passed his house, and she always pretended she didn’t see him. She stayed angry in solidarity with her friend, even if, by the time they graduated from high school, she had no idea what he was up to or where he was going to college or if she’d ever see him again. Their parting of ways had come before the ubiquity of social media, so that wasn’t even an option to keep in touch.

Shira never expected to see him again, but still, every time she went home to visit her parents and passed his house, she peeked in his front window anyway. Just in case.

1

Year One

Shira would never dare say it to any of her friends in Los Angeles, but she found the holidays in the suburbs superior to the holidays in the city. Or maybe she only found it superior to the way her crowd in particular celebrated the holidays in the city, which consisted mainly of ironic trips to cheesy holiday pop-up bars to make fun of all the decorations and corny drink puns, and visits to art gallery exhibits of “edgy” holiday fare, like last year’s series of paintings exploring a crime scene investigation involving the murder of Santa Claus. It turned out the elves had done it in protest of their working conditions, which the artist used as a call for the working class to unionize.

In the suburbs, you can drink eggnog or Manischewitz wine without having to make fun of it. You can express genuine excitement about the first fallen snowflake, because it’s not immediately going to turn into a gross gray slush full of fast-food wrappers and needles. You can go for a stroll around your neighborhood with your family to admire the Christmas lights strung on houses or the menorahs beaming proudly from front windows without worrying you’re going to get hit by a car when you see Leo for the first time in—

What? She stopped short on the sidewalk in front of Leo’s house—well, technically Leo’s dad’s house; it hadn’t been Leo’s house in years. It was dark out, and the big front window of the one-story ranch house was bright and uncovered, showing off the glowing electric menorah. Aside from that, it was empty now, except for some ghostly flickering from a TV off to the side.

It took a few seconds for her family to notice she had stopped, which she tried not to feel insulted by. “Shira?” her dad called over his shoulder. He and her mom stopped and turned around, their chins hunched down into their coats, their hands in their pockets. Bundled up like this, they could almost pass for twins: shortish, roundish, their glasses glinting beneath shiny black hoods. “Everything okay?”

She nodded and hustled after them. “Yeah.” Her breath came in short bursts, puffing clouds into the air. Talia, her sister, didn’t even seem to notice anyone had stopped; Shira could barely see her up ahead at the corner, a lanky teenage outline silhouetted against a horde of inflatable glowing reindeer. “Sorry, I just thought I saw Leo from the corner of my eye.”

“Oh, you probably did,” said her mom, all casual, as if her words didn’t leave Shira breathless. “I didn’t tell you he moved back?”

“What?” Shira hustled again to get in front of them so she could turn and fix them with an accusing glare. “No, you didn’t tell me!”

“Right after Thanksgiving,” her mom said.

“Wow,” said Shira, turning back to face the empty street, and it was wild that her first instinct was to think I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. Of course he wouldn’t tell her. They hadn’t talked in, what, seven years? Something like that. They’d never come back from that first year of falling out of touch, of being busy, of making new friends and getting into new activities, the same way Shira had drifted apart from most of her high school friends after they all went to college. Being in proximity had been most of the basis for those friendships, as it turned out, and though they’d promised to keep in touch and visit each other, those promises had kind of rusted and weakened and broken without hurting anyone.

Shira was twenty-two now, a college graduate. Leo would be, too. She’d wondered where he’d gone, what he was doing now. She’d tried googling him a couple of years ago one night when she was bored but hadn’t turned up much of anything besides his high school track rankings. “Huh. I’ll have to go say hi.”