“I think a lot about how much I hate you,” I say with no conviction.

“I think a lot about how much you hate me, too.” His smile is tender. “When’s the last time you had someone in your life you could be completely honest with, Elsie?” Asked by anyone else, it would be a patronizing question. Because it’s him, it just feels genuine.

“I . . .”

Maybe my parents, when I was very young. But I can’t remember a single moment in the past two decades in which I wasn’t context dependent. In which I didn’t feel the need to cut myself into pieces, serve the one I thought others would want on a silver platter. There have been easier people, like Cece. People who knew most parts of me, like Cece. Even people who recognized the pleaser in me and encouraged me to stop, like Cece.

Okay: there has been Cece. And I’m grateful. But even with her, I’ve never been fully sincere. I’ve always been scared that honesty would be the deal breaker.

“It’s been a while,” I say. But Jack already knew that.

“Then you’re overdue.”

This is . . . terrifying.

“No,” I say firmly, shaking my head. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m not interested.”

Disappointment darkens his eyes, but I can barely take it in before a phone buzzes—his.

“Shit,” he mutters. But he looks away and picks it up, and after a heaving sigh he says, “I need to leave.” He grabs a sweater from the couch. “Let’s go. I’ll drop you off first.”

I slide to my feet. “I can take the bus. The storm’s over, so—”

“Elsie.” Hand against my back, he pushes me to the entrance.

“No, seriously. You’ve already done so much . . .” He takes a soft, cozy black hat and slides it over my head. It’s not mine, but it feels great. And apparently I’m not awake enough to insist that I don’t need a ride and button up my coat at the same time. “It’s fine, I can even take an Uber and . . .”

He notices my shaking hands and gently brushes them away to do my buttons himself.

“Elsie, it’s fine. I get it. You don’t want me to take you out.” He gets to the highest button. His knuckles brush against my downturned chin. “At least let me take you home.”

•   •   •

Jack’s a confident driver, relaxed even in bad weather conditions, with the roads not quite clear and other cars swaying. I sink into the heated seat he turned on for me and remember the time I swerved to avoid a squirrel, almost causing a multivehicle crash.

The squirrel turned out to be a Wendy’s paper bag, but it’s fine. I’m good at other things. Probably.

“Feel free to pick up,” I say, pointing at Jack’s phone. It’s been buzzing nonstop in the cupholder, a weird techno soundtrack to NPR’s world news segment.

“It’s not a call,” he says, looking straight ahead.

More buzzing. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Just an incessant barrage of texts.”

“Oh. It sounds . . . urgent.”

“It isn’t. Not by any sane definition of the word.” He sighs, uncharacteristically defeated. “Do you mind if I stop somewhere before taking you home? It’s on the way and it’ll take a minute.”

“No, it’s fine,” I say—only to regret it when he pulls up a disturbingly familiar driveway. “This is . . . Isn’t this . . . ?”

Jack kills the engine. “Regrettably, yes.”

“I . . .” Should he be bringing me here, considering . . . literally everything? “Do you want me to, um, hide in the trunk or something?”

“It’s ten degrees. The car will get cold pretty fast.”

“So I should hide in the bushes?”

He looks at me like he’s going to stage an intervention for my tenuous grasp of the second law of thermodynamics. “Come on. It’ll be a minute.”

Outside feels like Hoth, and my butt actively mourns the toasty warmth of the seat. It’s considering a commemorative bench when the front door opens to the cruel, menacing, cutthroat glory of the most terrifying Smith.

Millicent.

“Well, well, well,” she singsongs, standing cross-armed. She’s wearing simple black pants and a cardigan, but even in a casual outfit there’s something intensely matriarchal about her. I cannot picture her ever having been anything but ninety and rich. “Look who’s not dead.”

“You know,” Jack says from my side, in that ever-amused tone of his, “I have many regrets in life.”

“I’m certain you do.”

“But teaching you how to text is the biggest.”

Millicent waves her hand. “When you were three, I had to drive you to the ER because you stuck a purple crayon up your butthole. That should be your biggest regret.”

Jack herds me inside the foyer with a gentle push on my lower back, like touching me casually is an established thing we have going on.

“You took your sweet time, considering the money you could inherit when I croak.” Millicent holds her cheek up for Jack to kiss her. He refuses, instead enveloping her in a bear hug that she pretends to bristle at but clearly loves.

“I told you,” he says, “just get buried with it.”

“I’m being cremated.”

“I hear paper burns great.”

She scoffs. “Keep on this way, and I’ll just will my entire fortune to Comcast.” She whirls around and marches down the glitzy hallway. Jack heads the same way, unperturbed, somehow managing not to look out of place despite being a mountain of muscles in a Caltech hoodie. After a moment of consideration, I decide to follow him.

Better not be alone. Wouldn’t want to be accused of stealing an ashtray.

We step into the same kitchen where Jack caught me lying about the wine two weeks ago. I watch him walk to a cupboard, hold Millicent’s eyes as he opens it, take out a bag of sugar, set it on the table, cross his arms, and ask, “Was this your life-or-death emergency?”

Millicent beams. “Why, yes. I just could not reach it, and I so hate bitter coffee.”

I glance at the cupboard. Which is . . . not high.

“Glad I was able to come to your aid on this very urgent matter.” Jack nods politely, stops for a quick peck on his grandmother’s cheek, then saunters to the door. His hand finds the usual spot on my back, and he gently pushes me out of the kitchen, clearly ready to leave, when—

“But since you’re already here, you should really stay for coffee.”

Jack’s arms drop to his sides, and he turns around.

“Millicent,” he says, stern. Amused. Must be a rich people thing, calling grandmas by their names. “Like I mentioned last week, and the ones before, you don’t need to trick me into spending time with you.”

“Oh, Jack. But I have been burned. Many times.”

“When was the last time you asked me to come over and I didn’t?”

“Three years ago. On my birthday. It could have been my last.”

“But was it?”

“Hindsight, shmindsight.” She stares remotely into the distance. “I waited and waited for my one bearable grandchild to show up—”

“I lived across the country.”

“—but alas, you’d left me. Abandoned me. Moved to the West Coast in search of something elusive. A Nobel Prize, perhaps?”

“I called you every day for seven years.”

“How’s that Nobel Prize coming along, anyway?”

He sighs. “You don’t have to trick me,” he repeats, and this time she grins at him, impish and mischievous, and I remember that she has always been my favorite of Greg’s relatives.

“But it’s more fun this way.”

I suspect this is an interaction they’ve had multiple times. I suspect Jack is trying to not smile. “I’m taking Elsie home. Then I’ll come back and—”

“Elsie?” Millicent turns, as though noticing me for the first time. “Elsie.” She takes a step toward me, and I stop breathing, trying to make myself inconspicuous. Who needs oxygen? I’ll just photosynthesize from now on. “Why is Elsie so familiar?”

I gulp. Comically.

“Ah. Yes. You beat Jack at Go.”

“We . . . tied, actually.” I glance at Jack, who’s smiling like my discomfort puts him in a good mood.