At this, Theo seemed even more grumpy and stabbed at the elevator buttons again.

“You know that doesn’t make the elevator come any faster,” Tess said, and smiled. It was Theo’s usual line.

“I know it doesn’t,” Theo said, stabbing away. “I bet this elevator only moves up and down.”

“You said that the old elevator was a waste of space. That the reason it could move every which way was because the elevator shafts took up so much room.”

Stab, stab, stab. “Yeah, but I also said it was cool.”

“Okay,” said Tess. She was twitchy enough without all this punching and stabbing, but she didn’t complain. He couldn’t have slept well slumped next to her bed. He couldn’t have slept well all week. She was used to getting only a few snatches of sleep a night, but it was a new thing for Theo.

Theo was right, the elevator only went up and down. They made it to Jaime’s floor in one quick minute, and barely felt the elevator’s movement. The elevator doors opened up onto a large hallway that also smelled of fresh paint. The solar glass on the hall window was clear as the very air. Tess recalled how the wavy old solar glass of 354 W. 73rd Street fractured the light into rainbows, and missed her old building so much that it hurt. She clutched her chest and Theo stopped walking.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, not fine, but what was there to do about it?

They knocked on Jaime’s apartment door and Jaime’s grandmother let them in. She was wearing coveralls much like the ones they had worn as a disguise their last few outings. But hers had the words THE HANDY WOMAN embroidered on the front pocket and written on the back.

She grinned at them. “Tess! Theo! Why has it taken you so long to visit me?” She gathered both of them into a hug. She smelled of something sweet, like jam, and also something woody, like oak. As if she had been cooking up a batch of marmalade while carving wands for wizards.

She led them inside the apartment. It was a large apartment, with a big open space that housed the kitchen and living room. Everything was white. The cabinets, the countertops, the walls. The few pieces of furniture that they had brought from their old place appeared small and worn in this brand-new space. They hadn’t purchased anything new themselves. They hadn’t painted. There were a few photos on some of the tables, but most must have been packed away, still. It was as if this place were staged instead of lived in.

Jaime’s grandmother knew what they were thinking, the way she often knew what children were thinking. “We’ve been too busy to decorate,” she told them. “One day we’re going to paint everything.”