She’d been devastated, getting that tree cut down. Her first official act as the building’s association president, and it’d felt foreboding, damning, especially so soon after Nonna had passed. I don’t want to do it, she’d told everyone, afraid of what they’d think. I wish I could keep it exactly as it is. But it’d been rotten to the core, that tree, and frankly they’d been lucky it hadn’t fallen on its own. In the end, she’d watched it come down—a whole day of chain saws running, men in truck lifts, wood shavings in the air like snowfall. She hadn’t cried, but she’d really, really wanted to.

“Wait,” she said, realizing that she’d neglected the most important part of what he’d said. She looked back down, found him watching her. “You’ve been here before?”

“Once. When I was a kid.” Something had changed in his voice, though she wasn’t sure she could’ve said what. Maybe it was that the air was changing all around them—the sky lightening, the predawn pitch transforming into a velvet blue-black. She knew it well enough to know: golden hour, almost over.

He cleared his throat. “He was my uncle.”

Nora blinked down at him, shock and relief coursing through her. So it was a relative, then. Loyalty! Nonna was saying smugly, from somewhere, but it also wasn’t really the time to be counting chickens.

“I’m so sorry,” Nora said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

The man dropped his head, something like a nod of acknowledgment, or maybe some kind of bow of respect for the mention of Donny. Inside her chest, she felt her heart squeeze in sympathy, in recognition.

I hate that I’m all the way up here, she thought, though definitely being down there would be weird. What would she do, hug him? Without a bra on? Disastrous. Extremely inappropriate! Nonna, obviously, would never.

“I didn’t know him very well,” he said, and there . . . there she could’ve said what. His voice sounded a little clipped. A little frustrated.

A little . . . disloyal.

No, Nora, she told herself. That’s only your 4:00 a.m. fretting talking. He’s probably still in shock, same as you.

Below her, the man reached up, scratched at that same spot on his chest. He cleared his throat again. “Do you like it here?”

Did she . . . like it?

What a question. This place held the best memories of her childhood, her adolescence. And now, she’d happily moved her whole life here for it. She could talk all morning about this building, thus her PowerPoint idea. Maybe this was an opportunity to bring up the wallpaper! Though probably it made more sense to talk about the people first, and—

They were interrupted again, this time by a shrill, urgent beeping, and the man quickly patted his leg.