Noelle sometimes stuck her head in, bringing them sandwiches so they would remember to eat. At the end of the week, she told them she was heading to Plattsburgh with Elijah to take the twins to the children’s museum. They glanced up, Hannah’s burnished gold head nestled next to Miriam’s giant halo of near-black curls, and Noelle’s heart turned over. Miriam was flushed with pleasure as Hannah listened to her describe an idea, and Noelle wondered how often people took her seriously. In a flash, Noelle saw what Cass must have seen in Miriam, a brilliant mind full of too much art, constantly trying to make herself smaller so as not to attract her dad’s attention, while also bursting to prove herself, to anyone.

“How are things going with the pretty interloper?” Elijah teased when she showed up at his house for their field trip.

“If you give me shit, I will not give you these cookies that Mrs. Matthews sent,” Noelle warned.

Elijah grabbed the bag. “Noelle has a crush! She wants to kiss the girl!” he sang to Jason, as he walked off to make sure the twins had peed and put on all their mittens and hats. Noelle scowled. Why did she have friends? He was right though.

She really wanted to kiss the girl.

When thoughts of making out kept her up until three a.m., Noelle wandered down to the kitchen to steal treats from Mrs. Matthews’s stash. Instead of cookies, she found an elf with an apron on, standing in the middle of Mrs. Matthews’s spotless blue delft kitchen (in need of new appliances, only where would they find the money?), rolling out dough with an old wooden rolling pin. Noelle propped herself against the doorway, arms crossed, watching Miriam hum to herself. Her little wild soul wrapped up in this domestic scene did something to Noelle’s insides.

“What are you doing up?” she asked, instead of wiping the flour off Miriam’s face and then leaning her up against the counter for a kiss, which is what she wanted to do.

Miriam startled, and her eyes widened.

“What?” Noelle asked.

“You’re standing under the mistletoe,” Miriam choked out. Noelle flashed her a grin. She wasn’t the only one thinking about kissing. She looked up, deliberately, at the mistletoe, and then moved out of the doorway toward the kitchen counter. This was where she’d first seen Miriam, but now their spots were reversed.

Miriam watched her approach before turning her attention back to the massive butcher block under her hands. “A Thing To Do,” she began, “when one is trying to distract oneself from a breakup or avoid one’s feelings of having failed one’s family, is to bake.”

Noelle noticed how she spoke like she was thinking about her feelings, instead of feeling them.

“I’m a Rosenstein,” Miriam continued, as if that was a full explanation. It was, Noelle supposed.