“You know what we ought to do,” she said, pulling a detail from some old photograph we’d uploaded. “We should carve a pumpkin tonight. What do you girls say?” She was up before we could answer, heading into the kitchen to do god knows what. We followed, and found her standing by the kitchen window, looking out at the yard. “Oh yes, we’re definitely doing that tonight.”

On her insistence we got the pumpkin, and all of us sat carving a jack-o’-lantern that evening. Mom knew a lot about Nin and me from the feeds we’d uploaded from our own contacts. She asked me about Theo and the kids, suggested we video-call them, but I lied and said they were watching a movie. I’d only started to explain Mom’s death to them; this wasn’t the time to let the boys speak with her hologram. If Mom worked, we’d prep the kids for a Christmas visit. But for now, with Mom suggesting we salt and roast pumpkin seeds, I wasn’t sure what we were going to do. The hollowed gourd grinned at us from the table and we put a candle inside its bucktoothed mouth.

“Looks pretty spooky,” Mom said.

Nin looked at me. “Sure does.”

We stayed with Mom for another hour, but though she was clearly all intact, her hologram made me feel as though something was missing, an arm or a leg. Nin looked like she was going to be sick. So we said we were tired, and I gave Mom an air hug good night before putting my arms around Dad. “You sure you’re okay with this?” I asked as we hugged.

“Thank you,” he said into my ear. Then he thanked Nin, his contacts looking damp in the kitchen light, and we left him and Mom sitting at the kitchen table chatting. Later, we heard them turn on the TV to stream a movie together, and Nin and I went to bed, wondering if we’d made the right decision.

At four in the morning, we heard the garbage cans being dragged down the driveway. I opened my curtains to see Dad outside in the frosted night, wrestling with the leaves we’d bagged by the curb. He lifted one of the large paper bags, spilling leaves everywhere as he tried to stuff it into the yard waste container. A couple doors down the neighbor’s dog began barking.

By the time we got outside Dad was in the garage, yanking a rake off the wall. Nin and I stood in the bleak garage light. “Dad, what are you doing?” I asked.

His hand gripped the rake as if he might take a swing at us. “You can’t just leave the bags like that.”

“Dad,” Nin said. “You’re freezing. Come inside—”

“It’ll rain, they’ll rip.”

“Dad,” Nin tried again.