“Did you get this from one of those self-help books they sell at the grocery store?”

He laughed. “Sadly, no. I stole it from my mom. It’s what we did after my dad left.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.” How awful. Of his dad. Of me. I didn’t know why I assumed he’d gotten all this stuff from a dumb book instead of his actual life. We took a few more steps in silence. “I didn’t mean to be so jokey,” I said.

“Hey, you can be jokey all you want. If it makes you happy,” he added with a wink. I must still have looked uncomfortable, because he added: “It’s okay, really. It happened two years ago now.” He dug a pair of thick green gloves out of his jacket pocket and slipped them on.

“It was awful at first. And it’s still hard sometimes, but I think my mom had the right idea. Like for example, one of the things she never really got to do was grill. That was always my dad’s job. He grilled the fancy burgers and she was on salad duty. When he left, she bought a Magellan Deluxe gourmet grill and started throwing Fourth of July barbecues. And because of that, we get to hear Mrs. Garber drunk-singing ‘Love Me Tender’ every year, which, again, you just have to trust me, is hilarious.”

I smiled. I wanted to ask more questions, like if he ever saw his dad now or not. But I didn’t know him well enough for that.

We made it back to the middle of the street between our houses. I checked my phone: 6:14. He should have left for the movie a while ago. Plus, it was getting really cold out here. But I didn’t want to end on such a heavy subject, so I searched my brain for something else to say.

“Did you knit those?” I pointed to the green gloves.

“Yup. My first attempt at gloves, so they turned out a little wonky.” From the golden light of the streetlamps, I could see they were lumpy in places, and one of the fingers was misshapen. Still, they looked warm.

I shrugged. “They’re not bad.”

Now 6:15. But Jude didn’t seem like he was in any hurry to leave. Surprisingly, I wasn’t, either. Then I remembered something he’d said to me back at auditions. “Hey, wait, if you knew who I was this whole time, how come you asked me if I was a freshman?”

Jude laughed. “Okay, that was a cheap shot. But come on, I’d known who you were for years and you’d just confirmed you had no idea who I was. I blame my fragile ego.”