“When my mother died,” Will said, his voice rough, cautious, and she knew he was about to confess another painful part of this story. “I sent a copy of her obituary here. But he didn’t . . . I never heard from him. I don’t really know why I did it.”

I do, thought Nora, and it felt like her heart broke into a million pieces, thinking of Will, a kid himself, without both of his parents. Reaching out to the person who’d been, apparently, the only family he had, and getting nothing in return.

“Nora,” he said quietly, and she swallowed again, knowing already they’d gone too far with this conversation. She could feel the way it’d led them right back to what they’d been trying to avoid, all through this temporary, allergy-prompted truce.

“Yeah?” she whispered, knowing already what he was about to say.

“I haven’t changed my mind. About the apartment.”

She nodded, wondering if he was watching her silhouette, too.

“I believe everything you say about this place. Everything you showed me.”

She meant to nod again, to stay propped up. But there was a stinging pressure in her head—behind her nose, behind her eyes—and she started sinking, by degrees, back into her pillows. It’s your sinuses, she lied to herself. You probably need more medicine.

“But I can’t be here,” he said, and she closed her eyes against a wave of something so potent, so recognizable, something no medicine could fix. Grief, again. For Nonna. For this place, and the way it would inevitably be different now. For Will.

“This is a place where a lot of things changed for me,” he continued. “And not for the better.”

It was hard to hear it. To hear that her experience of this place—the exact opposite of his, really—wasn’t anything sacred, or anything universal. It was hard to face that something she loved so much, something she’d tried to preserve so much, could be something so painful to someone else. She felt small and naive. She felt chastened.

“Right, of course,” she said. “I get it.”

He cleared his throat, and the mattress shifted again, because—yeah. His confession—it had been the end of something. It was right for him to leave. It was right for them to move on from this, to call off this feud. When he stood, he stayed by the bed, and she regretted letting herself lie down again. Whatever he said next, it would probably feel like instructions. Maybe that’s what he’d do. Drink water, take your pill every four hours, watch your fever. Doctor-patient, and nothing else between them at all.

“I’d appreciate if you don’t tell anyone else,” he said, which might as well have been instructions. “About Donny. It doesn’t do any good for them to know.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “I won’t.”