Ana and I were smoking a cigarette on our unshovelled balcony in our boots and underwear. Our radiator had broken and turned our apartment into a sauna, and we were trying to cool off. The frozen metal of the balcony railing gripped our hands as we watched a car spin and sputter in the parking lot below.

“The superintendent still hasn’t called back,” Ana muttered, just as we heard a knock on the front door.

“Well, if it isn’t a Christmas miracle.” I traipsed back inside with my boots, tracking snow across the floor.

“At least put on a bathrobe!” Ana called, but I wanted to make a point. I wanted to show him how we had been living for three days in our sweat-soaked underwear while he ignored our calls and texts, and a harder knock came just as I grabbed the doorknob and flung it open to find myself standing face to face with you in your winter coat, your purple rolling suitcase by your side. You were panting from the effort of hauling it up five flights of stairs. The tip of your nose moist from the cold. You looked me up and down. Slow and unhurried. And then you looked past me, surveying the apartment. The empty takeaway boxes. The piles of laundry. The fogged windows. The sweat. You brushed the snow off your shoulders. Took a deep breath. And told me you’d discovered that I was doing “pornography,” that you were extremely upset about it, in fact hadn’t been sleeping, and knew I wouldn’t reply to an email if you sent it and frankly the matter was so far beyond an email or phone call anyway, so much so that you felt compelled to take two full days off work “and just before a giant research grant is due, I might add” to drive down to Toronto to figure out what in god’s name was going on with me.

“Mom, I don’t need to stand here and justify —”

“Oh, yes, you do, one hundred goddamn percent you do.”