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“That’s not the ticket system and you know it.” She had hold of his arm, and Mrs. Morrison does not take hold of people lightly. “I’m not going to make a speech at you. I’ve made two this year and I’m over budget.”

She patted the arm and let go. “There’s a list in my kitchen drawer of the people who can handle Chester in traffic. It’s got four names on it. I put yours on the front of it on Tuesday.” She was already turning away. “That’s all. Go and get me some of Frank’s terrible cider.”

He stood there looking after her.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Recalculating,” he said, and did not let go of my hand.

Frank found me by the bookshelf a while later with two glasses of something amber. “Take this before I drink both.”

I accepted the glass and sniffed it. Apples, mostly, plus a suggestion of paint thinner I chose to interpret as character. “This is the famous basement project?”

“Cider. Aged two years. My father’s recipe.” He drank and watched the party over the rim. “I gave a glass to your developer too.”

“He’s the council’s choice for Main Street project manager now. The council approved starting the contract process on the twenty-seventh.”

“Heard. The whole room heard. Colette’s already drafting it for the church bulletin.” Frank’s attention stayed on Griffin across the room, where Ivy had him pinned down about load ratings for the bookshop’s upper floor. “I had a talk with him before the council vote.”

“Should I sit down?”

“I told him he’d better understand what he had and what losing you would cost.” Frank took a drink. “He understood.”

“That sounds almost like approval.”

“Don’t get carried away.”

Then he looked at me.

“You did the books for my store for six years and never sent me a bill,” Frank said. He wasn’t looking at me now. “I’ve been waiting most of a decade to get you back for that and you wouldn’t let me. Then you stood up in a room and asked.” He drank. “Best Christmas present I got.”

He walked off before I could embarrass us both. He did take my glass with him, which I assume was tactical.

The evening moved toward midnight. I slipped onto the narrow balcony over Main Street, where the cold cut through the party’s warmth and the storefronts rested dark under their garlands. The decorations would come down that weekend. The tree’s star would burn through the first week of January, as it had every year while this street taught me what family meant.

Griffin found me there four songs later. He always gives me enough time alone, which is a thing I have never told him I noticed. “You’re hiding.”

“I’m breathing. The apartment’s crowded.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“At the beginning of December, my shop was in danger, the festival was suspended, you were in San Francisco, and I was busy being right about you.”

“And now?”

“Now you’re hosting a New Year’s Eve party above Frank’s hardware store, and everyone I spent years keeping at arm’s length is crowded into your living room eating Pearl’s pastries off your drafting table.” I turned to face him. “How did that happen?”

“You asked for help.”

“You came back.”

“Both things.” He came to the rail, shoulder against mine, and I stopped noticing the cold. Below us Main Street lay quiet, the way it goes in the pause before midnight.

“I’ve been thinking about what changed,” he said.

“What did?”

“You.”