Gladys took a swig of her hot chocolate. “My bones were not made for freezing, ladies, and my head wasn’t made for nostalgia. Shall we move this party inside?”

Margaret inserted a rusty key into the lock, marveling at how old it was. Her father inherited this shoe-making business from his father, and the key was an original. Her family lived just a block from the store, which made for an easy commute and saved on the expense of bus tokens.

She ushered the girls inside and closed the door behind them. Pops had already shuttered the store for the evening, and the curtains had been drawn to keep any errant light from slipping through the metal sheets that covered the windows. This new routine had quickly become habit ever since a few tankers had been sunk in New York Harbor by German U-boats using the Manhattan skyline as an unintended flashlight. Now, all of Brooklyn had to live in “dim-out” conditions once the sun set. Even motor cars drove without headlights. Times Square and Coney Island were likewise darkened.

New York became a ghost town at night.

Once the door was closed behind them, Margaret flipped on the switch and the overhead lights—hanging by their wires—flickered until they cast a yellow glow across the room. The Becks’ bread and butter money came from the rugged boots popular in workman’s Brooklyn. The shop served those at the Navy Yard, along with laborers at the nearby sugar refineries, dockyards, and glue factories.

They used to sell women’s shoes as well, embellished with buckles and embroidered flowers. Black patent leather. Flapper shoes designed for endless hours of dancing. Her mother, quoting Abigail Adams, had implored her husband to remember the ladies, and the side offerings had brought in a modest profit.

Now, everything was utilitarian in construct. Unimaginative, and a poor waste of her father’s talent for the trade. Instead of the needlepoint Margaret had once assisted with, her off-hours were often spent slicing through leather hides and fitting them around wooden lasts shaped like toeless feet.

She’d once had a nightmare about those lasts—people were dancing, but their feet were bare, made only of the smooth, featureless wood. She’d been just five years old, but the rows of them that her father had hanging on the wall still gave her the heebie-jeebies.

And yet she loved working with her hands. Creating something both useful and beautiful. Sometimes she envisioned joining John in carrying the family business into a third generation.

“We can set up in the workshop,” she said, pointing to a back room. Gladys and Dottie followed.