“Just because you’re not a priest doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want your help,” I say with a wave of my hand at the door.

His expression darkens as his whole body tenses. “No. I left the Church.”

And now I understand. “You’ve . . . you haven’t gone back? At all?”

His face pinches as he lowers his gaze. “I can’t. I don’t belong there.”

“Alessandro,” I say, squeezing his hand.

He pulls it away, refusing to be comforted. Instead, he spins on his heel and stalks up the sidewalk in the direction we were going. I’m a little surprised he doesn’t head back toward the subway. I catch up as he moves purposefully toward the destination neither of us really wants to see, but both of us need to. I don’t try to hold his hand again, and he keeps a safe space between us.

We weave up Avenue A and turn the corner onto East Fourth without speaking, and Alessandro’s hurried pace finally slows as we reach the building.

Someone’s given it a face-lift, adding white stucco and blue trim to the first story of a building that was always just grungy brick. It still looks sad.

I’m staring at it, my guts in a knot, when I feel Alessandro’s fingers thread into mine. When I glance his direction, he’s staring at it too, the skin around his eyes pulled tight. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows the emotion I feel forming as a lump in my own throat.

There’s no markings on the building to indicate it’s a group home, but there weren’t then either. I start across the street and Alessandro moves with me. It takes me a long time to lift my finger to the buzzer.

It’s a full minute later when a Latina girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, opens the door. “What?” she says, chomping on gum and planting one hand on her jutted hip.

“Um . . .” I swallow. “Is this still a group home?”

She spits out a bitter laugh. “You our new counselors?”

“No.” I glance back at Alessandro, whose expression is stone. “We used to live here . . . a long time ago.”

A cynical smile curves her lips. “Back to relive the best years of your life?”

My stomach clamps. “Is there a chance we could come in?”

Alessandro’s grip on my hand tightens to the point I’m afraid he’s going to break something, but I don’t shake him off.

She swings the door wide. “Knock yourselves out,” she says over her shoulder, already disappearing down the hall to the kitchen.

I breathe deeply to settle my nerves and notice the sickeningly familiar stench that hangs in the air—the unmistakable scent of hopelessness. “It hasn’t changed much.”

We step through the door into the hallway, and when my eyes focus in the dim light, and I see the hole in the wall near the door, I flash to Lorenzo putting his foot through the wall in nearly the same place one day when he was fighting with Ms. Jenkins.

“It hasn’t changed at all,” I amend, closing the door behind us.

Halfway up on the right, I see the door to the basement. Alessandro follows me as I pull it open and start down the stairs. The deeper we descend, the more it smells like mildew, dirty laundry, and stale cigarette smoke. When we get to the bottom and flick on the rec-room light, I swear it’s the same furniture—the saggy brown couch and sticky blue chair.

Alessandro is frozen next to me, his eyes locked on a brown stain on the filthy carpet next to the couch. His olive completion has gone gray, and he looks like he’s going to be sick.

“Breathe, Alessandro,” I say softly.

His eyes flick to me, as if I’ve broken whatever spell had him locked there. He hauls a deep breath, holding it for a second, before exhaling slowly through pursed lips.

I squeeze his hand. “Are you okay?”

He nods, but his expression says otherwise. “A lot happened in this room.”

My eyes slide to the couch and I see the clear image of a scrawny girl with reddish black kinks draped over a long, lean boy in dirty jeans, with messy black hair. I shake the image away as tears pool in my eyes. “Yeah.”

He lets go of my hand and moves slowly around the room, stopping once near the corner where he always sat with his sketch pad, noticing too much. He moves to the couch and looks down at it a long moment with moist eyes. “I really believed I loved you.” His eyes lift to mine. “I never would have done . . .” His face pinches as he trails off. He turns and drops onto the couch with his forehead in his hand.

I move to sit next to him, my insides clamped tight. “What happened was as much my fault as yours. I was scared, and alone, and I just needed to feel something.”

He hauls a deep breath and lifts his head, gazing at me with pleading eyes. “I’m so sorry, Hilary. For Lorenzo. For me. For everything.”

“I know. Me too.”

He loops his arm around me, and I rest my head on his shoulder. And I hope this time, he doesn’t see my tears.

ON THE WAY back to the subway, I steer him down Second Street, past the Catholic youth center. I walk him right up to the door and open it, then nudge him through. “Talk to them.”

He catches a corner of his lower lip between his teeth and fixes me in his anguished gaze. But then he turns and moves deeper into the room, to a nun who’s tacking a paper to a corkboard near the door. “Hello,” he says in a slightly unsteady voice. “I was wondering if you were in need of volunteers.”

I step back onto the sidewalk and wait. Fifteen minutes later, he comes out. He presses his lips into a line and nods, like some really difficult task is done. When he slips his arm around my shoulder and guides me up the sidewalk, I lean into him.

He squeezes my shoulder, and kisses the top of my head, and that, more than anything else today, is enough to bring tears to my eyes.

“DO YOU NEED anything, Brett? More turkey? Or stuffing?” Mallory is all over him like white on rice. He almost never comes here, but when he does, she waits on him like he’s the freaking maharaja or something. I think she thinks she’s making up for me. Like, if she’s uber-nice it will make up for my bitchiness and he’ll see that he really wants to sweep me off my feet and into a three-bedroom, two-bath Cape with a picket fence in a random New Jersey suburb, where we can have a life like hers and Jeff’s.

The thought makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

I mean, I get it. I do. She wants to be everything our mother wasn’t and she’s terrified I’m treading Mom’s path. But her lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and it’s definitely not for me.

“So tell us about your show, Brett,” she says.

His eyes shoot to me before he looks at Mallory and shrugs. “It’s just about five college guys trying to figure shit out.”

Her eyes widen for an instant and flick to Henri and Max. Max is intensely focused on making his mound of mashed potatoes into an igloo around the puddle of gravy in the middle, but Henri is looking at Brett and grinning widely.

“Oh,” Mallory says, gaining back her composure. “How is it being received?”

Brett’s mouth tightens as he lifts his eyes from his plate again, annoyed at the string of questions. “So far we’re selling out and the reviews are good.”

“There’s a scene where Brett strips,” I say through a mouthful of green-bean casserole. “The reviewers love it. It’s totally hot.”

Mallory asks about the tour, and conversation for the rest of dinner is just as awkward. When we’re done, Mallory brings out the apple pie and vanilla ice cream. She serves it up and we eat in front of the football game in the family room.

“So, what do you think of the Jets’ big trade?” Jeff asks Brett.

Brett scratches his chin and looks at Jeff for a second before saying, “Um . . . I don’t really follow the Jets.”

Jeff cracks a smile. “You’re a Giants guy, huh?”

“Not really,” Brett answers with a shrug.

“So . . . basketball?” Jeff tries.