Tonight, Sophia had been in her unit for hours, her car parked in the attached lot and becoming slowly buried by the ever-falling snow. Rebecca’s rental too had collected an inch of the white stuff. She had to keep turning on the wipers to swipe the layer away and cranking up the defroster to keep the windows clear—in the process, she thought, probably drawing attention to herself.

Though it seemed no one noticed.

Certainly not Sophia.

“This is nuts,” she told her reflection in the rearview mirror.

She’d watched people come and go, traffic becoming lighter as the hours had passed and night had deepened, the traffic light at the far end of the street turning from red to green, in mesmerizing slow motion. To pass the time, she’d listened to podcasts or music on her phone, which she’d recharge by turning on the car for a few minutes at a time.

Christmas had come and gone, and for the first time in her life, Rebecca had been totally alone. She’d avoided the lobby of the hotel and the attached restaurant, ordered in room service, and felt sorry for herself as she picked at her plate of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes—a meal she assumed the hotel served at Thanksgiving as well, but she had swapped out the pumpkin pie for a mocha yule log decorated in red and green. She’d barely touched it, but had drunk two glasses of wine.

Her parents were wrapped in their own new lives, apart from hers, and though each had called and wished her a “Merry Christmas,” with promises to get together soon and concern for Megan, they’d disconnected to plug in to the people they were now close to, while Rebecca had thought of Megan, wondering about her, wishing she could at least have a glass of wine and wish her sister the best. Despite everything, all the pain, all the betrayal, all the damned not trusting, Megan was, in the end, her sibling, as close to her as anyone.

She had thought of James and saw that he’d actually called, but Christmas itself wasn’t a time to bring up that old pain, or the nostalgia that might come from connecting with him. There would have been a good chance she would have done something stupid—so it had been smarter not to fall into that emotional trap on a lonely night.

So it had been a lonely, empty Christmas, and Rebecca couldn’t help but note the irony of the situation; she’d been bombarded with holiday lights, trees, songs, and smells ever since driving into Riggs Crossing.

But now it was over.

The new year loomed.

“Let’s hope it’s a better one,” she muttered and wondered if she’d ever see her sister again.