The snow was the same snow.

But everything about where I stood in it had changed, because a year before I had been out in that cold, shut out of the warmth, and now the warmth was mine, built with my own hands and my grandfather’s faith, and no one could put me out of it ever again.

My phone buzzed once, on the coffee table.

A text, from Savannah. Can we please talk sometime today? it read.

Three months of silence, and then, on Christmas, a small careful knock at a door she had slammed in my face a year ago to the day.

I looked at it for a while.