I wanted to tell her “Yes, and it’s awful,” but instead I got up and went inside the house and shut the door behind me. I watched them through the window as they walked down the street, catching glimpses of Sage’s peach-and-white uniform through the trees. She had tried to make it up with me. She was always like that, being fair and kind and seeing the other person’s side. It was something about her that I admired and hated. It was like having a friend who was a reasonable adult while I was a childish brat. The only other time we’d had a fight like this was after she had met Bill, and I’d been so angry with her I hadn’t spoken to her for weeks.

Sage had met Bill in a snowstorm. It was during the unexpected blizzard earlier that year. She was at the mall, working, when the snow started. By the time she got on the bus for home, the roads were nearly impassable, and the snow was still falling in a whirl of thick flakes. Her bus crawled up Route 23 to the base of the mountain. The driver let her off. There was no one there to meet her, so she started the climb by road in just her uniform and a thin coat. Night had fallen, and there were no tire tracks; no car had even tried to make it up the hill.

She had walked for nearly an hour, she said, when she started to get scared. Her legs were soaking wet and freezing. The snow had reached her knees and was still falling. She had another two miles to go and had started to think she might just have to find a house for help when she heard a low thrum and saw headlights in the distance. There was a truck making its way up through the snow, spinning some but never stopping. She stood to the side of the road and watched as it approached, hoping the driver could see her in the dark through the blue haze of snow. She could hear the heavy chains wrapped around the wheels, giving it traction. It pulled in beside her, and the passenger door opened. She didn’t recognize the truck—she said it was red and oversized, one of those king cabs—and she looked in. My mother was sliding over to make room, and a man Sage didn’t know was driving. They continued up the hill. Sage said she had been so cold and it was so dark, she never got a good look at him. They plowed up through the snow in silence. She saw him in profile when she got out of the truck: he was broad, wore a brown suede coat with sheepskin lining and collar, and his hair was brown and curly.

Sage called our house the second she got inside, her voice shaking with cold and excitement.