She looked up. Her grandpa was standing at the front door.

“I’m fine, Grandpa!”

“Did you fall?”

“No, I’m fine!”

“Let me get my coat.”

“No, Grandpa—stay!”

“Don’t come out, Al—it’s slick!”

“Is that you, Mason?”

“Yeah, don’t come out—I’ll help her.”

“Don’t you dare,” Reagan hissed.

“Just go,” Mason said. “Walk in the snow. It’s safer.”

He was right. She inched over to the snow, then stepped into it—even though she was wearing ankle boots, and the snow immediately fell over the tops. She got to the porch and up to the door—her grandpa was just coming back with his coat half on. Reagan hurried past him into the house and closed the door behind her.

And then there they were, she and her grandpa, standing not a foot apart. His coat was still hanging from one shoulder, and Reagan had tracked snow onto the carpet, and all she could think about in that moment was the air between them—the constant flow of droplets and microparticles. Her grandpa looked thinner than she remembered. Older than he’d looked just a few months ago. Like she could knock him over by breathing too hard.

This is okay. She’d taken every precaution. Reagan had been careful, anyway, for months—and then she’d practically sealed her little house off for two weeks so she could be here. She hadn’t even opened her mail.

She was as clean as she could be; she wasn’t going to hurt him.

“Hi, Grandpa,” she said. And then she dropped her bags and stepped forward to give him a hug. It took him a second to catch up. Reagan didn’t blame him; she hadn’t hugged anyone in months, and neither of them had ever been huggers anyway. Grandma was the hugger. Grandma was the one who made you go find your grandpa and give him a hug. Reagan and her grandfather had probably never hugged before except under orders.

Reagan was the wrong choice for this.

If you could only spend Christmas with one person, no one in her family would pick her. (No one in the world would pick her.)

Reagan was the person you called when you wanted someone to talk you into leaving your husband. Or when you needed someone to call the bank to straighten out your overdraft fees.

Her niece called Reagan when she needed help getting birth control. And Reagan’s mom called when she wanted someone to go to the Ford dealership with her dad, so they didn’t end up paying too much for a truck.

No one called Reagan for comfort.

No one called Reagan to offer any.

No one ever said, “I’m lonely, could you come by?”—and no one ever came by.

Even before this bullshit.