“I don’t want to see him,” he said.

“Then you won’t,” I said.

“That’s the end of it.” And Julian took the letter into the kitchen and tore it into pieces and dropped it in the trash, and that was the last we spoke of Arthur Vance for a very long time.

That winter, the cold came back to the city.

One late afternoon, freezing rain began to tick against the living-room windows while Lucas sat on the rug finishing his homework, and I saw him stop writing, and go still, and stare out at the dark wet glass.

Julian saw it too.