Chapter 16
BEN
The city looks smaller when you’re flying back into it.
From the plane window, New York is a grid of frost and gray, the East River is like a streak of dull metal under the morning light.
By the time I grab my suitcase from baggage claim, I’ve already switched back into autopilot: call a car, check my emails, scroll through messages from my team that all start with not urgent but quick question.
It’s like stepping back into something that hasn’t changed in the week I’ve been gone. I’ve changed, though.
The snow from last week hasn’t melted, just turned into dirty slush that clings to the edges of sidewalks.
I should go home, but instead, I text my sister.
Me
Landed. Are you guys at mom’s?
She replies almost immediately.
Jess
Yes. Kids just went down for their nap. Come over
My childhood home is in Connecticut, about an hour outside the city. It takes me closer to two to get to them with the holiday traffic, but I don’t mind. I need the time to decompress, to figure out why everything feels like it’s slightly tilted off its axis.
I know the answer, but maybe if I think hard enough I can come up with other excuses to make me feel less pathetic.
When my ride finally pulls up into the driveway, my sister is already standing on the porch in a puffy jacket, waving at me like it’s been years since she last saw me. She also lives in the city and we have a habit of seeing each other at least once a week.
“You look tan,” she says as soon as I step out of the car.
“I would hope so, since I just spent time in the Caribbean,” I remind her. “That’s kind of the point.”
She hugs me anyway. “You also look tired.”
“I am tired.”
“So then what’s the point of a vacation? If you’re coming back more tired than you went into it?” She takes my suitcase because she’s never not an eldest daughter and walks back into the house, dropping it off in the small entryway by the garage door.
Inside, the smell of coffee and something cinnamon-y hits me immediately.
It reminds me of all the Christmases we’ve spent in this house—growing up as kids huddled around the tree on Christmas morning opening presents like feral animals, the quiet mornings a few years after our dad died.
And then the joy that came back to our lives once the twins were born.
The house was always warm, cozy, full of noise that makes it feel alive—the soft hum of the TV in the background, my mother humming while she embroiders, my brother-in-law typing in the next room, probably working from home instead of going to an office during these in-between days.
It’s domestic in a way that feels almost foreign to me now.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, heading to the back of the house. She’s at the kitchen table, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She looks up when I walk in.
“Benjamin,” she says, in that half-scolding way that means she’s happy to see me. “You look thinner.”
I bend to kiss her cheek. “You say that every time you see me.”
“Because it’s true every time.”
I smile and sit down across from her, the same seat I’ve been sitting in since high school. The same coffee mug I always use is waiting for me.
My sister pours herself a cup and leans against the counter. “How was paradise?”
“Nice,” I say, maybe too quickly. “Warm. Relaxing.”
She narrows her eyes. “That’s not what that tone means.”
“I—” I stop. I don’t know how to explain it. How do you tell your sister that you met someone and can’t stop thinking about her and the possibility of a future with her, even though it was never supposed to mean anything?
I stir my coffee just to do something with my hands. “It was good to get away.”
“Uh-huh.” She crosses her arms. “What’s her name?”
“Why would you even think that?”
“My god, you think I was born yesterday? You look different.”
Mom doesn’t even look up from her embroidery. “He always looks like that after vacation.”
“Ma,” Jessica says with a grin on her face, “he hasn’t gone on a vacation since the twins were born, so how would you even know.”
I groan. “Stop meddling.”
My sister’s grin softens. “Was she nice?”
I pause. “Yeah.”
That’s the only word I can manage. Nice. But what I mean is: kind, curious, funny, grounded. So fucking real and independent and fulfilled and…
Someone who made me laugh before I even realized I was trying. Someone who made everything—work, noise, pressure—go quiet for a minute.
“Amazing,” I admit finally, under my breath.
My sister gives me a look that’s all affection and knowing. “And now?”
“Nothing. Back to reality.”
She nods like she gets it, but I can tell she doesn’t really. Or maybe she’s pretending for my sake, because right now I sound like a whiny, pathetic man who falls in love easily. Mom puts down her stuff, and turns to me, her voice bright.
“Ben, sweetheart, why don’t you take a few days off before going back to work? You can stay here and help me around the house. My gutters need cleaning.”
Jessica snorts, and that finally pulls a smile out of me. The gutters don’t need cleaning—it’s the end of December, and the yard’s covered in frost. Mom just wants to give me something to do, a project to keep me from sitting still long enough to start thinking about her.
I take a sip of coffee that’s already gone cold. The bitterness sits on my tongue, but I don’t move to fix it.
Mom’s humming again, something soft and familiar. Jessica scrolls through her phone, muttering about the twins’ nap schedule, and outside, the sky hangs low and heavy, the kind of gray that makes everything feel smaller.
It should feel like comfort—home, family, normalcy—but it doesn’t.
It feels like the space between two lives.
Jessica catches me staring out the window and bumps my shoulder gently. “It’ll pass,” she says.
I nod, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. But deep down, I know that’s a lie. It won’t pass. Not for a while.
Because I know that I’ll be looking for her in the crowds.