On this starless winter night, wind howled through the street and cold wicked up from the ground, burrowing into Zoe Rosenzweig’s bones. Not that she minded; she preferred winter. Sweltering summer days often set her on edge. She fumbled in the dark to slip her key in the door. The porch light was out again. She tucked the bag with the snow globe under her arm, turned the lock, then jabbed the doorbell twice. The kitschy souvenir of the Chicago skyline was for her grandfather, as was the double ring; the latter to signal he needn’t rush to greet her. Not that he rushed anywhere since his stroke.

“It’s me,” she called, stepping inside his tidy Raleigh bungalow, and leaving her keys in the misshapen ceramic bowl on the foyer table, the one she’d made for Grandma Tess twenty years ago.

“Zoe, you’re back from your trip?” Katherine called from the kitchen. Strong, kind Katherine was a fleshy woman with a tight cap of gray curls, and was Zoe’s favorite of the home health aides who cycled through Grandpa Aron’s days.

“I came straight from the airport.” Zoe dropped her coat and backpack on a kitchen chair. “We need a new bulb on the porch.” Katherine was wearing one of Grandma Tess’s aprons. The green one with lemons. Zoe’s grandmother had been gone for a year, and seeing her apron on the aide made her cheeks feel flush. She wanted to tell Katherine to take it off. Instead, she forced a smile. Katherine was a godsend, she reminded herself, and this was just an apron.