All of it? She flipped through the artifacts covered in childish squiggles. This was a collection of no more than thirty pages. Somehow she’d inflated their creations to well over a hundred. Seeing them now—so many gags targeting the ungainly, the elderly and the unconventionally shaped—these were the private craft projects of two unhappy teenagers who shared an affinity for certain pop-culture references and were sheltered enough to think that this made them brilliant. In her hands half a lifetime later, the papers seemed so redundant, so . . . unspecial. They made Mr. Park’s short stories seem daringly original.

“Keep them.” She pushed the pile back into his hands, her own hands shaking.

“I’ve long outgrown them,” he said. “Anyway, they’re not for you or me. She might want a laugh or two someday. To know where she came from. Borne of snark, boredom and nostalgia.”

Not knowing what else to say, Kate grabbed his hand. After a while, he gently pulled away. She didn’t fight it. They glanced across the street at the darkened van der Holt house. It had once been the Corot house, Paul’s house, and they had spent many sleepy afternoons there, giggling at the cleverness of their collages.

“She must know we tried,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

The white beard made Raymond’s entire face itch. What was this thing made of, the pubic hair of ancient hippies? He looked more Rasputin than Santa Claus. Enthusiastic volunteers had plied him with endless mugs of cocoa which, in his absolute boredom, he’d thoughtlessly sucked down. Now he was trudging home to pee.

As he scrubbed away the gumminess from shaking the drool-slicked hands of toddlers, he saw in the mirror the beard-induced rash on the lower half of his face. It looked like sunburn. Goddammit. He felt like slipping into his pajamas and not leaving his house again until the New Year. Only then would he venture across the street to that Ireland woman and conk her over the head with one of her own crutches. What a sap he was, taken in by her Tiny Tim act!

As he stepped out of his baggy red pants, the hairs at the back of his neck stood up. He turned. There was a smeary gray silhouette in the small, frosted bathroom window. Someone was trying to prize the window open from the outside. From where Raymond stood, he could see that the person was wearing one of those hooded sweaters favored by the local gangs. He backed gingerly out of the room in his underwear, then sprinted madly upstairs for his gun. When he returned, the window was open but the prowler was gone.

“I fucking give up!” He stamped his feet and crumpled to the cold marble floor.