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“I’m sorry to hear that.” The banter was gone from his tone, replaced by kindness. “That’s a terrible loss.”

The wind was whistling and buffeting the car. She tightened her grip on the wheel. She wanted to talk about her past about as much as she wanted to talk about that message. “How about you?”

“Me? My family is pretty normal.”

“What does that mean?”

“They care about me, and I care about them. We’re close. Talking of which, I probably ought to message them to tell them I’m going to be late. I don’t want them to worry.”

“Good idea.” Envy shot through her. She had no one to message. There was no one in her life who cared enough to worry about her. If she didn’t arrive home (could she even call it that?), no one would notice. “You’re spending Christmas with them?”

“Yes. I’m going straight there once I’ve dropped you back at your car.”

She thought about her car, very possibly buried by now. Probably the last lonely car in a big, empty parking lot. It felt symbolic. A cold, lonely car to take her home to her cold, lonely apartment. If the car refused to start, she’d have to sleep in the office until everyone was back from the holiday break.

Still, at least there were decorations in the office, which was more than could be said for her own apartment.

She forced her mind back to the conversation. “Your parents live in Boston?”

“Cambridge. My mother is a professor at MIT. Physics. My father works in biotech.”

“Wow. So a seriously brainy family, then.”

And a normal family. She’d read that such things existed, although she had no personal experience. Mostly, she tried not to think about it, because what good did it do to think about things you didn’t have? But at this time of year that was more of a challenge. It was hard not to be seduced by all the images of perfect families trimming trees and laughing together.

She could imagine Jason fitting into that scenario.

“Your parents didn’t want you to follow in their footsteps and be an academic? Did they try and talk you out of becoming a photographer?”

“No. Far from it. The moment they saw how interested I was they bought me a camera. They believe it’s important to be passionate about what you do, whatever that may be.”

“Right.” So they’d encouraged him. Nurtured his interest. That was what healthy, loving families did.

“How about you? Did your dad remarry?”

“He did. He married his personal assistant.” The woman he’d been having an affair with before her mother died.

“Was that hard?”

Hard didn’t begin to describe it.

“It wasn’t easy, but I was happy he was happy.” It was the answer she always gave. “It was a long time ago. They’ve been together twenty years.”

“Kids?”

“No. My dad didn’t want any more kids.” He hadn’t wanted the one he had. “It seems I was more than enough. I’m the ultimate contraception, don’t you know? We should have reached that house by now, but I don’t see it.” She could feel him looking at her and hoped he wasn’t going to return to the subject of her parents. She’d already said more than she’d intended to. “Do you see any landmarks?”

There was a brief pause but then he followed her lead. “I can’t see anything except swirling snow.”

“Remind me why we said yes to this job?”

“Because it was that or be fired.” Jason glanced down at his phone. “I’ve lost signal. Let me know if you want to switch and let me drive.”

“Am I making you nervous?”

“No. But driving in this is tiring. And you seem more tense than you were.”

Talking about her parents tended to make her tense.