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I pick up the scissors and put them down again. "Once."

"What did you ask for?"

"Something I didn't get."

He waits. He doesn't push. He just sits there on his stool with his pen in his hand and his whole attention on me, patient, and the shop is so quiet I can hear the train circling the window at the other end of the room.

"I was twelve," I say. "And it doesn't matter now."

"It matters."

"It was a long time ago."

"It still matters." He caps the pen. "That's why you wouldn't look at the window yesterday. You'd glance up for the sleigh or a kid at the glass, then straight back down at your paper. You never once looked at the little houses."

Heat rushes up my neck. "You counted."

"I watched."

"That's worse."

"Probably," he says, and the corner of his mouth lifts, the almost-smile that never finishes. "You started it."

The door swings open. A family of five comes in out of the cold, all talking at once, and the lull is over. Arch stacks the letters, gets up off the stool, and carries the mailbox back to its spot by the door.

I wrap all afternoon. I can't stop thinking about Kenzie's letter, and his answer, and a big man on a stool reading three hundred letters slowly enough to catch every word.

At a quarter to five, Dottie puts on her coat and comes back to pat my arm. "You're good for him," she whispers before I can tell her I'm leaving Tuesday.

Then she's gone, the bell ringing behind her, and the sprig swaying a little over the door in the draft.

Arch flips the sign to CLOSED at five. He turns off the overhead lights, one bank at a time, until only the window and the lamp over the wrap counter are lit. Then he walks back to me.

He stops on the other side of the counter.

"Stay after close tonight," he says. "There's something I want to show you."

I should say no. I should get my coat and walk the two blocks to Shay's and keep counting down to Tuesday.

"What is it?" I ask.

He looks up, past me, at the highest shelf behind the counter.

"Stay," he says, "and I'll show you."

My hands are already folding the last sheet of paper, and they aren't steady.

"Okay," I say.

4

ARCH

"You'll need the stool," Noelle says from the other side of the wrap counter.

The shop is dark except for the glow of the window and the lamp over her counter. I'm standing in front of the highest shelf with my hands at my sides, looking up at the carousel.

"I know," I say.