It didn’t take long to get downtown, maybe ten minutes. By then, the insides of Anthony’s windows were covered with moisture. Downtown Milwaukee could sometimes seem abandoned, aside from the few grim-faced workers on Wisconsin Avenue walking with their arms crossed in front of them, bracing against the cold. Wreaths with big red bows hung from the electrical lines on each block. With the holiday just a few weeks away, Michael had hoped against hope that the festivities of the season might bring the Gordons back together. Last year, his first Christmas with the family, Connie had put up the nativity scene even though they didn’t go to church. It was a family joke to move Mary’s figurine closer and closer to Jesus each day of Advent. Ed resurrected the model train set he’d used as a kid. He’d spent a lot of time showing Michael how it worked. Once they propped up the tree (they’d driven out to a farm and cut it down themselves, which seemed impossibly quaint compared to the Charlie Brown trees his mother used to buy at the gas station), Ed set the train in motion around the base. Christmas morning was like a scene from a cheesy after-school movie. It wouldn’t be like that this year.

“Here we are.” Anthony pulled up in front of the classic old Pfister Hotel. The valet opened Michael’s door at the same moment he was about to open it himself. He almost fell out of the car, right at the valet’s feet.

They walked inside. Anthony took off his camel coat and draped it casually over his arm. He was dressed in pressed khakis and a soft, expensive-looking beige sweater. His leather shoes were shiny, free of scuffs. His tan was gone and so was his beard. His face was pale, which only made his black hair and dark eyelashes all the more striking and blunt, more startling than handsome.

Everyone at the hotel, including Anthony, was dressed nicely, expensively. It made Michael wish he’d given his outfit more thought, but how would he have ever known that morning when he was getting dressed in such a hurry that he’d end up here, at the Pfister? He wore jeans and an open jacket over the T-shirt Poppy gave him for his birthday last October. It said CAPE COD but looked like the Coca-Cola logo. He felt like everyone in the hushed lobby was staring at him.