“I’ll boost you up with my hand,” Stuart said. “Step up.”

When I tried to move my leg, it refused to cooperate right away. My legs were so numb that they didn’t really work anymore. Once I got them going, Stuart’s hands were too cold to support me. It took some tries, but I eventually got a foothold.

Of course, once I got up, I made the important discovery that ice is slippery, and therefore very hard to hold on to, especially when your hands are also covered in wet bags. I reached back and helped pull Stuart, who landed flat on the ice.

We were out. And being out felt a lot worse than being in, weirdly enough.

“Iss . . . not . . . tha . . . far,” he said. It was hard to understand him. My lungs felt like they were wobbling. He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward a house just at the top of the rise. If he hadn’t dragged me, I would never have made it up the hill.

I have never, ever been so happy to see a house. It was entirely outlined by a faint greenish glow, interspersed with tiny dots of red. The back door was unlocked, and we stepped into a paradise. It wasn’t that it was the most amazing house I had ever been in—it was simply a house, with warmth, and a residual smell of cooked turkey and cookies and tree.

Stuart didn’t stop pulling me until we reached a door, which turned out to lead to a bathroom with a glass shower stall.

“Here,” he said, pressing me in. “Shower. Now. Warm water.”

The door slammed and I heard him run off. I stripped off what I was wearing immediately, stumbling as I reached for the shower knob. My clothes were frighteningly heavy, full of water and snow and mud.

I stayed in there a long time, slumped against the wall, filling the little room with steam. The water changed temperature once or twice, probably because Stuart was also taking a shower somewhere else in the house.

I turned off the water only when it started to go cold. When I emerged into the thick steam, I saw that my clothes were gone. Someone had extracted them from the bathroom without my noticing. In their place were two large towels, a pair of sweatpants, a sweatshirt, socks, and slippers. The clothes were for a guy, except for the socks and slippers. The socks were thick and pink, and the slippers were white fluffy booties, very worn.

I grabbed for the nearest item, which was a sweatshirt, and held it up to my naked self, even though I was clearly alone in the bathroom now. Someone had come in. Someone had been lurking around, removing my clothes and replacing them with new, dry ones. Had Stuart let himself in while I was showering? Had he seen me in my natural state? Did I even care at this point?

I dressed quickly, putting on every single item that had been left for me. I opened the door a crack and peered out. The kitchen appeared empty. I opened the door wider, and suddenly a woman popped out of nowhere. She was mom-aged, with curly blonde hair that looked like it had been fried by using a home coloring kit. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a picture of two hugging koalas in Santa hats. The only thing I really cared about, though, was the fact that she was holding out a steaming mug.

“You poor thing!” she said. She was really loud, one of those people you can easily hear across entire parking lots. “Stuart’s upstairs. I’m his mom.”

I accepted the mug. It could have been a cup of hot poison, but I would have drunk it anyway.

“Poor thing,” she said again. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get you warm again. Sorry I couldn’t find anything to fit you better. Those are Stuart’s, and the only clean ones I could find in the laundry. I put your clothes in the washer, and your shoes and coat are drying on the heater. If you need to call anyone, you just go right ahead. Don’t worry if it’s long distance.”

This was my introduction to Stuart’s mom (“Call me Debbie”). I’d known her for all of twenty seconds, and already she had seen my underwear and was offering me her son’s clothes. She immediately planted me at the kitchen table and started pulling out endless Saran-wrapped plates from the refrigerator.

“We had Christmas Eve dinner while Stuart was at work, but I made plenty! Plenty! Eat up!”

There was a lot of food: turkey and mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, the works. She brought all of it out and insisted on making me a big plateful, with a hot cup of chicken-dumpling soup on the side. By this point, I was hungry—maybe hungrier than I’d ever been in my life.

Stuart reappeared in the doorway. Like me, he was dressed for warmth. He was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a stretched-out cable sweater. I don’t know . . . maybe it was the sense of gratitude, my general happiness at being alive, the absence of a bag on his head . . . but he was kind of good-looking. And any of my former annoyance with him was gone.

“You’ll set Julie up for the night?” she asked. “Make sure to turn off the tree so it doesn’t keep her awake.”

“I’m sorry . . . ” I said. It was only now that I realized that I had just crashed into their lives on Christmas.

“Don’t you apologize! I’m glad you had the sense to come here! We’ll take care of you. Make sure she has enough blankets, Stuart.”

“There will be blankets,” he assured her.

“She needs one now. Look. She’s freezing. So do you. Sit here.”

She hustled into the living room. Stuart raised his eyebrows as if to say, This may go on for a while. She returned with two fleece throws. I was wrapped in a deep blue one. She swaddled me in it, like I was a baby, to the point where it was kind of hard to move my arms.

“You need more hot chocolate,” she said. “Or tea? We have all kinds.”

“I’ve got it, Mom,” Stuart said.

“More soup? Eat the soup. That’s homemade, and chicken soup is like natural penicillin. After the chill you’ve both had—”

“I’ve got it, Mom.”

Debbie took my half-empty soup cup, refilled it to the top, and put it in the microwave.

“Make sure she knows where everything is, Stuart. If you want anything during the night, you just get it. You make yourself at home. You’re one of ours now, Julie.”

I appreciated the sentiment, but I thought that was a strange way of putting it.

Chapter Seven

Stuart and I spent several quiet moments contentedly stuffing our faces once Debbie was gone. Except, I got the feeling that she wasn’t really gone—I never heard her walk away. I think Stuart felt this, too, because he kept turning around.

“This soup really is amazing,” I said, because that sounded like a good remark to have overheard. “I’ve never had anything like it. It’s the dumplings . . . ”

“You’re probably not Jewish, that’s why,” he said, getting up and shutting the accordion kitchen door. “Those are matzo balls.”

“You’re Jewish?”

Stuart held up a finger, indicating I should wait. He rattled the door a little, and there was a series of rapid, creaking steps, like someone trying to hurry quietly up the stairs.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought we had company. Must have been mice. Yeah, my mom is, so technically, yes. But she has this thing about Christmas. I think she does it to fit in. She goes kind of overboard, though.”

The kitchen had been completely converted for the season. The hand towels, the toaster cover, the fridge magnets, the curtains, the tablecloth, the centerpiece . . . the more I looked, the more Christmasy it got.

“Did you note the fake electric holly on the way in?” Stuart asked. “Our house is never going to be on the cover of Southern Jew at this rate.”

“So, why . . . ”

He shrugged.

“Because it’s what people do,” he said, picking up another piece of turkey, folding it, and shoving it in his mouth. “Especially around here. There isn’t exactly what you would call a thriving Jewish community. My Hebrew-school class was just me and one other girl.”