Letting out a slow exhale, Hudson looked at the presents on his passenger seat: a red envelope and a bottle of wine in a shimmery bag. He’d never been good at gifts. That had been Nan’s forte. Regardless, he grabbed them and walked up to the door, cringing at the way they felt like a pathetic consolation.

He knocked.

Seconds passed, enough for him to notice the many sets of footprints on the stoop. How many people had already come by for a visit today? Noelle answered the door, smile already queued up, but when she saw it was him, her eyes shone and her smile turned into a frown. She didn’t have to put up a façade for him. He knew the weight of grief. How it made you feel like you owed it to the world to grin and bear it while even the smallest things seemed impossible. Like shoveling the walk. Folding the laundry. Putting a new bag in the garbage can.

Her face broke. “Ryan.” She took his hand in hers then, and pulled him inside.

It was strange being in Garrison’s house without him. He’d been over lots of times—with Nan and then without—so often, in fact, that Noelle and Garrison used to joke that Hudson was their son. Every time they’d mentioned it, he felt guilty for wishing it was true.

He stared past Noelle into the living room, half hoping to see Garrison sitting in his recliner and overhearing the explosions from his favorite Christmas movie, Die Hard. But all was quiet. It almost felt as if they were in an igloo, with snow blocking the sounds of the outside world.

“How are you?” he asked. A moot question.

She took in a breath. “A mess.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Another moot question.

“You can sit down.” A small smile curved her lips. She wandered to the kitchen island and Hudson followed, after slipping off his shoes.

Lilah came from down the hall, wearing pajama pants and an oversized sweatshirt. “I thought I heard you,” she said.

“Merry Christmas.” Hudson rose off the stool to put his arm around her. When he sat back down, he noticed for the first time the dining room table heaped with festive paper plates filled with cookies and brownies and bars of every assortment, all surrounding a centerpiece of what had to be at least five poinsettias. He warranted a guess most of it had come from the wave of visitors that preceded him.

“Can I offer you something to eat, Ryan?” said Noelle. “We have cookies and, well, more cookies.”

“And if you’re still hungry,” added Lilah as she took the stool next to him, “you can add a side of cookies.”

“Might need some wine to wash down all those cookies,” he said, and slid the glittery bag toward Noelle.

She opened it and hugged it to her chest like a precious heirloom. “You know the key to a woman’s heart.”