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“Gramps told me that you bought furniture,” he mentioned. “He said he helped you drag boxes of bookshelves upstairs.”

“He fills you in on a lot.” I wished that it ran both ways because I would have liked to know that Oliver’s ex-wife was now living…again, it didn’t make any difference to me, as someone who was happy being on her own and doing everything herself.

“I’m glad that he has you, but he also needs more people in his life. I was thinking about trying to set him up. The woman next door is a widow who seems very nice,” he said. “Very sweet, like my grandmother. Maybe they would get along. I keep thinking about Christmas and how that will be, with him alone again.”

“I could be there,” I volunteered. “I think that’s a more reasonable scenario than expecting him to get a girlfriend. He seems happy enough by himself, anyway. He doesn’t need anyone.”

“You could be right. You’re not going to do anything over the holiday? No trip to see your mom?”

“No. She’s in Mexico right now but she may not be by the time the twenty-fifth rolls around. I’d rather stay here, anyway. I’m going to get a tree,” I said, improvising. “I’m going to decorate my apartment and do it up. I think I’ll have a dinner party like you did.”

“Great,” he said, nodding.

Then I realized that I wouldn’t have said that unless, of course, I was going to invite him. So I would have to invite him to the non-existent dinner party that I had just made up out of thin air. And who else was supposed to come? My list of acquaintances was short. I was also terrible in those kinds of situations; the last time I’d been to a party (Oliver’s), I had barely managed to speak.

“You’re invited,” I forced myself to add. “I’ll text with the details.”

“I guess we will be seeing each other again. I had thought that you were going to ignore me.”

“It would be weird if we just denied each other’s existence,” I answered. I had tried to do that with him and yet, here I was.

“But that was what you told me, isn’t it? You had said that if I moved a few miles away, we wouldn’t be friends anymore.”

When he put it that way, I sounded like a silly child, stamping my foot and making dumb pronouncements. Was I that immature? “No, that would be weird,” I reiterated. “We have your grandfather to tie us together.”

Gramps arrived at that point, along with several pizzas and a cake. “Cake makes everyone happier,” he told me privately, but Oliver already seemed ok. He definitely wasn’t mad anymore, and actually, I wasn’t sure if he ever had been—maybe just taken aback and upset about the cost. But he did want to make something clear.

“You can’t do anything like this every again,” he told his grandfather. “Also, I’m paying you for it.”

“I won’t,” his gramps promised. “I won’t say no to the money, either.” He looked like he had a lot more that he wanted to say but he only finished with, “I hope it makes you happy to play it. I think it will.”

“I’m have to wait a while before the tuner comes but I’ll set that up tomorrow. Do you have any recommendations for people?”

They talked about the instrument while we ate pizza and then cake, which Oliver said reminded him of a birthday party in elementary school. That sounded fun and I also liked being at his house. I was sorry to have to leave and it seemed like Gramps was, too. Both of us were quiet on the way back to the Milaflores Building, with no comments about my lack of attention to the road.

The next morning, I was lying on my inflatable mattress and looking at the sun glowing through the tape on the sides of the blinds. I needed to fix that by getting something that actually fit there. I had already bought new mattresses, but it seemed silly to take off the plastic and pile them on the floor in the midst of the pieces of the bed that I hadn’t been able to get together right.

Then I got a text, and I immediately grabbed my phone to see who had written. “I’m heading over to your street this morning,” Oliver had sent. “Want to go for a run?”

Yes. “Yes, I’m up and ready, come whenever,” I told him. I leaped out of bed and ran to the bathroom, moving fast until I turned on the faucet to wash my face. Then I looked down at the clear water splashing into the sink and frowned at it.

Everything was definitely diminished. There was a little glitter, maybe a dusting. I sang along as I brushed my teeth because I already knew the words to the song, but the volume was lower and the lyrics were much fainter now. That reduction had started to happen a few weeks ago and I thought that it would probably be gone soon enough. I turned off the water and as I dried my face, someone knocked on my front door.

When I looked through the peephole, I saw Oliver in the hallway. He was dressed as neatly as ever and totally awake, like he’d brushed his teeth hours ago. “Hi,” I said as I opened the door. I tried not to direct my words in his direction and to breathe shallowly, because I hadn’t gotten to brushing my own yet. “That was quick.”

“I was in the neighborhood.” He looked me over. “Sorry, I thought you said that you were ready.”

“Almost,” I promised. I gestured at him to come in and ran back to my bedroom, where I dug some clothes out of the bottom of the closet and tried to find the headband that he’d loaned to me. It had been a while since I’d exercised outside.

When I came back into the living room, he was staring at my piles of pieces. “Those are my bookshelves,” I said. “I’m assembling them.”

He picked up one of the tools that I’d borrowed from Mrs. McGlothen. “Why do you need a saw?”

“They’re not fitting together exactly right. I need to resize some things,” I said. “Also, I need a heavier hammer so I’m going to buy tools of my own. Ready?”

It felt good to be outside in the morning, cold but also refreshing. My jacket, which he had also loaned me, was perfect. “Half of what I have on belongs to you or your sister,” I mentioned. “I should have given it all back to you before you moved.”

“No, no need. Let me know if you want to see my watch.”