Something softened in his face as I said it. Let’s go see the snow, he’d been saying to me since I was little, and seeing the snow was a very big deal. And then when I’d gotten older, it was treated as a joke, but we still did it. Like we had to joke about it, to pretend we didn’t care, even when the exact opposite was true. And we’d go walking in the snow, just the two of us. One of those things that doesn’t make sense to anyone else, something that’s hard to describe the importance of, but when it’s no longer there, it’s almost unbearable, like the world is a few degrees off its axis. And since the divorce—since we weren’t in the same house anymore—that had been the end of looking at the snow.

Until now. Until tonight.

My dad didn’t even have a coat, just his black cashmere sweater, but we went out anyway, through the revolving door and onto Seventy-Second Street. I looked up, enjoying the feeling of vertigo that always set in when you were looking up into a snowstorm, like maybe the snow wasn’t falling down, maybe you were rising up to meet it. We passed the Dakota and nodded seriously at the outside doorman, whose top hat was starting to get a dusting. We walked around the corner onto Central Park West, and my dad showed me the gargoyle heads on the fencing of the Dakota that extended all the way to the subway stop on the corner. I scooped some snow off the head of one of the gargoyles and let it melt between my palms. We were faux-debating the pros and cons of going into the park to see the snow (I wanted to go because it was right there; he wisely pointed out that we didn’t have our sleds) when my dad saw the town car make the turn onto Seventy-Second, pull up in front of Mayfair Towers and put its hazards on.

“I think that’s your ride, kid.”

“Yeah.”

My dad confirmed the destinations with the driver—Mallory’s apartment in Murray Hill, then the train station parking lot in Stanwich, Connecticut—and turned to me. “I’m so sorry about tonight.”

“I know,” I said, giving him a smile. “Me too. About the yelling, I mean.”

“Don’t forget the swearing.”

“I thought you’d be proud. I mean, I had to learn it somewhere.” My dad threw back his head and laughed one of his barking laughs.

“We’re okay?” he asked, and I nodded.