He turns from the reservoir fence, where he has been standing, and makes his way out of the park. He has walked home tonight, through the park. He knows Ruth would likely scold him, and he’d probably scold her, too, if she walked in the park at night, but there is something so different between the actual park at night and the idea of it. The idea of it is dangerous and foreboding, the park peopled by the imagination with muggers and killers and drunks. But to actually be here, Wilson thinks, looking around him—it is gentle, quiet, calm. The snow beneath each decorated lamp glows; squirrels perch furtively on the backs of benches, nibbling their finds; a branch breaks; bursts of traffic pulse the drive, released by mid-park stoplights.

Leaving the park is like reemerging into the world. Wilson puts his hands in his pockets and keeps his head down as he walks the few blocks up Fifth toward home. He’s already called to get the car from the garage, and he got his things for the weekend together this morning, so as long as Isabelle and Ruth are ready to go, they should make it to his mother’s well before midnight. He turns the corner onto their street and looks up from the ground as he hurries the few yards left to their building. The light atop the canopy shines like a beacon; he can anticipate the warmth inside, and the musty smell of marble, and the soft, dim light—he needs to bring holiday bonuses down to the doormen, he’s thinking as he passes through the door, tonight, on the way out—and then, right there in the doorway, he stops short.

In one of the green armchairs, just by the lobby’s Christmas tree, Isabelle is sitting, a book on her lap. Her feet don’t reach the floor, and her hair clings with static to the velvet upholstery, and the sight of her there—small and smiling and so utterly herself—makes Wilson hurt with love. It has been months since she last waited for him to come home.

“Belle!” he says. “What are you doing down here?”

Isabelle looks up from her book, momentarily surprised to see her father in the doorway, though it used to be when she sat in the lobby that her heart would race in anticipation of her father’s arrival each time the door opened. He gathers her up and spins her as he always used to do, and she feels herself blush, because this makes her feel less like a mystic than a little girl. She glances at Brian, the new doorman, who is rising from his seat. Her father sets her down.

“Belle!” Brian says. “So that’s your name!”

“Isabelle, actually,” her father says. “Wilson Carter,” he says, extending his hand.

“Brian,” Brian says. “Nice to meet you. Isabelle has been keeping me company.”

“How thoughtful!”