Abby skips down the steps, looking much more confident and beautiful than I did as a freshman. What is so annoyingly cute is that she and Caleb have matching dimples. I bite my cheek to keep from pointing this out because I’m sure they’ve noticed. When she reaches the landing, she extends her hand. For the briefest moment as our hands touch, my mind flashes through everything I imagined happening that day between her and Caleb.

“It is so nice to finally meet you,” she says. Her smile is as kind and genuine as her brother’s. “Caleb’s told me so much about you. I feel like I’m meeting a celebrity!”

“I…” I don’t know what to say. “Well, okay! It’s so nice to meet you, too.”

Caleb’s mom comes out of the kitchen with a similar smile, but no dimple. At first glance, by the way she holds herself, she seems more reserved than her children.

“Don’t let Caleb keep you by the door,” she says. “Come in. I hope you like lasagna.”

Abby swings around the banister on her way to the kitchen. “I also hope you can eat a lot of it,” she says.

Caleb’s mom watches Abby walk into the kitchen. She keeps staring in that direction even after her daughter is out of view. Eventually, she lowers her head a moment, and then turns toward us. More to herself, she says, “It’s nice when she’s home.”

With those words, I’m overwhelmed with the feeling that I shouldn’t be here. Their family deserves to share this first night together without a stranger taking attention away from them. I glance at Caleb, and he must sense that I need to talk.

“I’m going to give Sierra a little tour before dinner,” he says. “Is that okay?”

His mom waves us away. “We’ll set the table.”

She walks into the kitchen, where Abby is pulling a small table away from the wall. She touches Abby’s hair as she passes, and my heart breaks.

I follow Caleb into the living room. Deep maroon curtains are pulled back, framing the Christmas tree.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Your mom has so little time with the two of you together,” I say.

“You’re not interrupting anything,” he says. “I want you to meet them. That’s important, too.”

I can hear Caleb’s mom and Abby talking in the kitchen. Their voices sound cheery. They’re so happy to be together. When I look at Caleb, he’s staring at the tree, his eyes incredibly sad.

I step close to the tree and look at the ornaments. You can tell a lot from the ornaments on a family’s tree. This one is a mishmash of things he and Abby must’ve made when they were small, plus some fancy ornaments from locations all over the world.

I touch a twinkling Eiffel Tower. “Did your mom visit all these places?”

He nudges a Sphinx wearing a Santa hat. “You know how collections start. One of her friends brings back an ornament from Egypt, another friend sees it on our tree and brings back something from her trip.”

“She’s got some globe-trotting friends,” I say. “Does she ever go anywhere?”

“Not since the split,” he says. “At first, it was because we didn’t have enough money.”

“And then?”

He looks toward the kitchen. “When one child decides to leave, I guess it’s harder to leave the other for even a short time.”

I touch an ornament of what I assume is the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but it dangles straight up and down on the tree. “Couldn’t you go with her?”

He laughs. “And now we’re back to the money issue.”

Caleb leads me upstairs to see his room. He walks ahead of me down the narrow hall toward an open door at the other end, but my legs stop fast at a closed door painted solid white. I lean in close and my breath catches. A series of painted-over cut-marks are clustered at eye level. Instinctively, I feel them with my fingertips.

I hear the breath rush out of Caleb. I look over and see him watching me.

“The door used to be painted red,” he says. “My mom tried to sand it down and paint over them so they’re less obvious, but… there they are.”

What happened that night now feels so real. Now I know he ran from the kitchen and up a flight of stairs. His sister cried behind this door while Caleb stood right here, striking it over and over with the blade of a knife. Caleb—gentler than anyone I’ve met—went after Abby with a knife. And he did it while his best friend watched. I can’t merge that version of him with the one watching me right now. From the doorway of his room, his expression is locked somewhere between worry and shame. I want to tell him that I’m not freaked out, to hold on to him and reassure him. But I can’t.

His mom calls from below, “You two ready to eat?”

Our eyes don’t leave each other. The door of his room is open, but I won’t be stepping inside there. Not right now. Now, we need to get back to normal, or as close as we can, for his mom and Abby. He walks by me, letting his fingers graze my hand, but he doesn’t take it. I take one more look at his sister’s door and then follow him down the stairs.

Colorful ceramic plates hang on the kitchen walls. A small table in the center of the floor is set for the four of us. While our kitchen back home is bigger than theirs, this feels cozier.

“The table isn’t usually in the middle of the floor,” his mom says, standing beside her chair, “but there aren’t usually so many of us.”

“Your kitchen’s way more spacious than the trailer where I’m living.” I stretch out my arms. “I’d be in the bathroom and the microwave if I did this.”

His mom laughs and then walks to the stove. When she opens the oven door, the room fills with the delicious smell of melted cheese, tomato sauce, and garlic.

Caleb holds out a chair for me and I thank him while I sit. He slides into the chair to my right, but then jumps up and pulls out the chair for his sister, too. Abby laughs and swats him, and I can tell from the easy way she is around him that she really has let go of their past.

Caleb’s mom brings a pan of lasagna to the table and places it in the middle. When she sits, she sets a napkin on her lap. “We do family-style, Sierra. Go ahead and serve yourself first.”

Caleb reaches for the spatula. “I got this.” He dishes me out a massive chunk of lasagna, oozing cheese, and then he does the same for Abby and his mom.

“You forgot yourself,” I say.

Caleb looks at his empty plate and then cuts a piece for himself. Abby puts an elbow on the table, covering a smile while she watches her brother.

“So you’re a freshman?” I say. “How do you like high school so far?”

“She’s doing great,” Caleb says. “I mean, you are, right?”

I tilt my head and look at him. Maybe he feels a need to prove everything’s fine after our moment at the door upstairs.

Abby shakes her head at him. “Yes, dear brother, I’m doing fantastic. I’m happy and it’s a good school.”

I turn to her and smile. “Is Caleb a bit overprotective?”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s like the happiness police, always calling to make sure my life’s going well.”

“Abby,” Caleb’s mom says, “let’s have a nice dinner, okay?”

“That’s what I was trying to do,” Abby says.

Caleb’s mom looks at me, but her smile looks anxious. She turns to Abby. “I don’t think we need to bring up certain things when there are guests.”

Caleb puts his hand on mine. “Mom, she was just answering a question.”

I give Caleb’s hand a squeeze and then look over at Abby. Her eyes are lowered.

After a good minute of eating in silence, his mom starts asking questions about what it’s like to live on a Christmas tree farm. Abby is in awe of how much land we own when I try to describe what it looks like. I almost tell her she should come visit, but I’m sure either answer would lead to more awkward silence. The whole family looks shocked when I tell them about Uncle Bruce’s helicopter and how I hook trees to it while it’s flying.

Caleb’s mom looks between him and Abby. “I cannot imagine letting either of you do that.”

Caleb finally appears to be relaxing. We share stories about the trees we’ve delivered together, and he tells about some he did on his own. Whenever Caleb speaks, I notice his mom looks at Abby. Does she wonder, while Abby listens to the stories, what it would be like for them to still grow up together? When I tell them it was my idea to bring the families homemade cookies, I catch Caleb’s mom winking at him and my heart speeds up a little. When we’re done eating, no one makes a move to leave the table.

But then Abby talks about getting a tree with her dad. Their mom goes around collecting plates, and Abby starts talking directly to me. I hold her gaze, but I can see Caleb looking down at his hands on the table while his mom puts things in the dishwasher.

Their mom stays away from the table until Abby’s story is done. She then brings over a plate full of Rice Krispies treats with baked-in red and green sprinkles. Abby asks me if it’s hard to be away from home and all my friends for an entire month every year. We all grab a treat and I consider her question.

“I do miss my friends,” I say, “but it’s been like this since I was born. I guess when you’ve grown up one way, it’s hard to miss how things could be different, you know?”

“Unfortunately,” Caleb says, “in Abby’s case, we know how things could be different.”

I hold on to his arm. “That is not what I meant.”

Caleb sets down his dessert. “You know what, I’m exhausted.” He looks at me, a flash of pain in his eyes. “We shouldn’t make your parents worry.”

It’s like a bucket of ice water drops over me.

Caleb stands up, avoiding everyone’s eyes, and then pushes in his chair. I numbly stand up from mine. I thank his mom and Abby for the nice dinner, and his mom looks down at her plate. Abby shakes her head at Caleb, but no words need to be said. He walks toward the front door and I follow.