“Hmm? Oh. No. Not exactly.” He shook his head and smiled, his towel swirling over a plate before he put it in the stack with the rest. “It was supposed to be, but she died before I could give it to her. It’s a keepsake. We don’t—it’s bad luck to keep the possessions of the dead, so we tend not to hold onto much. Photographs, but other than that, we gave her things away to Goodwill.”

I nodded, eyes skimming the small house. We were alone, Leaf’s father was working that night as a security guard at a nearby factory, but the guitar leaning against the wall was his, Leaf said, as well as the stack of video games. “I don’t play,” Leaf said. “But Dad’s a COD monster.” There were family pictures on the wall with Leaf, his father—whom he resembled not only in features but in stature—his sister, Miri, and his niece, Elana. There was also a picture of Leaf’s father with a tall, willowy pale woman with auburn hair.

Leaf had her nose.

Her name was Michelle, he told me.

The furniture was well cared for but mismatched—a striped armchair next to the fireplace, a floral couch with a stack of colorful blankets on one cushion pushed against a teal-painted wall. Braided rugs, a bookshelf with fantasy novels, a leather ottoman and a coffee table filled the rest of the space. The flat-screen TV was held up by brackets, the wires hidden behind a shallow entertainment center housing the PlayStation, DVR and DVD player.

A solid collection of Blu-rays filled the bottom shelf alphabetized for easy plundering. I got up from my seat and walked over to crouch before them, pulling out Young Frankenstein and holding it above my head.

“Is your dad home at all tonight?” I asked Leaf, who was on the other side of the half wall in the kitchen finishing dishes.

“Not till midnight. Why?”

“Do we want to skip the movies and hang here? You’ve got a lot of good stuff. I’m cool with going to the theater, too, if you had your heart set on it. It’s just, we can talk here.”

Leaf towel-dried his hands and moseyed out to the living room, plucking the DVD from my grip and grinning. “This is one of my dad’s favorites. Mine, too.”

“Same! I’d be down if you are.”

“Sounds good. Great, even.” He paused. “I didn’t make a dessert, though. I figured we’d be getting popcorn.”

“That is what convenience stores were designed for,” I said, standing up and heading for the kitchen to grab my sweatshirt from the back of the chair. “Onward, to victory. And by victory, I mean crap food.”