We arrived around dinnertime on the twentieth, our car bursting with packages and newly purchased decorations, followed closely by a man from town with a gold tooth, a wooden leg, and a trailer carrying our freshly cut Christmas tree.

I watched as they wrestled with the mammoth tree, wondering briefly if it would even fit through our front door. It was cold outside, and I shuffled my feet on the ground to keep warm. Without thinking, I looked over my shoulder at the Petropoulos house.

The windows glowed, some of them foggy with condensation. A steady stream of smoke rose from a crooked chimney, curling like ribbon before disappearing into blackness.

We’d been to the cabin three times since October, and during each visit Elliot had come to the door, knocked, and Dad let him upstairs. We would lie on the floor of my closet—slowly being converted into a tiny library—and read for hours.

But I’d yet to visit his house. I tried to guess which room was his, to imagine what he might be doing. I wondered what Christmas was like for them, in a house with a dad and a mom, four kids, and a dog who looked more horse than canine. I bet it smelled like cookies and freshly cut pine. I decided it was probably hard to find someplace quiet to read.

We had been there barely an hour when the old chiming doorbell rang. I opened it to find Elliot and Miss Dina, holding a paper plate laden with something heavy and covered in foil.

“We brought you cookies,” Elliot said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His mouth was newly crammed with braces. His face was covered by a metallic network of headgear.

I stared wide-eyed at him, and he glowered at me, cheeks growing pink. “Focus on the cookies, Macy.”

“Do we have guests, min lille blomst?” Dad asked from the kitchen. In his voice I heard the mild disapproval; the unspoken Can’t the boy wait until tomorrow?

“I’m not staying, Duncan,” Miss Dina called. “Just walked these cookies over, but you send Elliot home whenever you two are ready to eat, okay?”

“Dinner is almost ready,” Dad said in reply, his calm voice hiding any outward reaction to anyone who didn’t know him as well as I did.

I walked to the kitchen and slid the plate of cookies beside him on the island. A peace offering.

“We’re going to read,” I told him. “Okay?”

Dad looked at me, and then down at the cookies, and relented. “Thirty minutes.”

Elliot came willingly, following me past the hulking tree and up the stairs.

Christmas music filtered up the open landing from the kitchen, but it vanished as we stepped into the closet. In the time since we’d bought the house, Dad had lined the walls with shelves and added a beanbag chair in the corner, facing the small futon couch against the front wall. Pillows from home were scattered around, and it was starting to feel cozy, like the inside of a genie’s bottle.