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And then she hung her work. By the time she was done, her shoulders were aching and one of her fingers throbbed from catching it between the frame and the nail and the wall. She stuck that finger into her mouth and surveyed the walls with a huff of pride. It had been a while since she’d set up an exhibition.

She was proud to finish with this one, the most meaningful one of them all.

Her family returned home soon, too, Talia with all the ordered doughnuts plus a few extras she couldn’t resist (“this one looks just like a tomato!”), and her dad arranged everything perfectly in the fridge in his own little art show, and her mom came bearing the news that she’d saved them almost twenty dollars (which, as it happened, was about the amount Talia had spent on the extra doughnuts).

Assured that so far everything was going according to plan, Shira disappeared in a puff of steam to primp and polish and dress, emerging a couple of hours later with her hair in perfect curls, a rare occurrence because it not only required a fresh wash and a whole lot of creams and gels but almost an hour standing by the mirror with the diffuser nozzle on the hair dryer and the patience to use it. Her eyelashes were highlighted with mascara and her lips with a shiny gloss, and she’d donned a shimmery blue cocktail dress that accentuated the curve of her waist and hips and flattered the bump of her stomach. Most of her guests would not wear anything as fancy, but Shira was the hostess. She was allowed fancy.

And then, as the sky darkened, the guests began to arrive. Shira greeted them all at the door, her heart leaping every time it cracked open, then thudding when it was just the couple down the street or the lady whose cat she used to watch when she went on vacation. Shira smiled at them all, of course, shook hands, said “Thank you” when they congratulated her for moving to Philly, because obviously her parents had already told everyone, though to be honest she didn’t know why it deserved a congratulations. The congratulations should really go to her parents, who had been working toward this goal for years.

When Leo finally came, he didn’t give a knock, not even a cursory one. He pushed the door open, and there he was. Shira’s face was still frozen in a smile from greeting the Yorks, who had spent their few minutes of greeting warning her that anywhere she went in Philly she’d probably get shot or stabbed, but it relaxed into a real, warm one when she saw him there.

He’d changed a bit over the past year—his hair now curled to that sharp spot where his jaw met his cheek, and he wore glasses, wire rims, though she’d never seen him wearing them before—but he was still him, in that plaid-checked shirt and well-fitting dark jeans and the intoxicating aroma of wood and cut grass and soap. “Shira,” he said, and the way he said her name warmed her from the inside out more than a cup of hot cocoa taken as a shot. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” she said breathlessly, and peered behind him. “Is your mom coming?”

Leo shook his head, still standing in the doorway. “She said to tell you thanks for the invitation and she wished she could make it, but she’s busy. That’s not true, she’s not busy. She just didn’t want to come.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “Said too many of the neighbors knew my dad was cheating on her before she did and she was still mad at them.”

“Understandable,” Shira said. A gust of frigid air from the open door hit her in the face, and she stepped back to usher him inside, more out of worry for her hair than her body temperature, honestly. Perfect curls were a hard-fought accomplishment, and it was all too easy to ruin them. He shut the door behind him. The wind made it slam, and they both jumped, then laughed at themselves.

As much as she wanted to go show him her paintings right away, she decided to let him come in, relax, and put something in his stomach so he’d be poised in the best possible position to love them. She placed a hand on his shoulder and was a little surprised to feel the muscle corded beneath; he still looked lean from the outside, but these months of working on houses had clearly had an effect. “We have a new feature this year,” she said, then cringed a little because it sounded like she was talking about a new iPhone. “A latke bar. Come explore its wonders.”

His shoulder flexed under her hand, as if he wanted to make absolutely sure she felt the muscle there. “I’d like nothing more.”

A half hour later, their stomachs were full of latkes and a motley assortment of toppings—kimchi, sour cream, mango chutney, smoked salmon—that sounded disgusting all together but had been quite delicious individually, along with one latke cocktail each. Feeling a little warmer and a little more relaxed, Shira placed her hand back on his shoulder. “Can I show you my paintings?”

“I’m excited to see them,” said Leo. She steered him around the clusters of people hovering around the latke bar—it was very popular; she was definitely doing it again next year—and into the hallway, which was quiet because nobody was waiting for the bathroom. She dropped her hand from his shoulder so that he could move at his own pace from painting to painting.

And she held her breath.

Then stopped holding her breath because she didn’t want to pass out, and he was taking an awfully long time studying the first painting. And then—after what felt like forever—he cracked a smile. “This one is me,” he said, looking over at her. “Kind of? Maybe? I know there’s no person in the painting, but it feels like me.”

“I based this one on our childhood,” she said. The painted cup was a plastic one—you could only really tell from the subtle difference in the shine of light upon it, something the gallery owner had specifically called out to praise—and it overflowed with Pokémon-like creatures fighting with one another, skinned knees, sharp pencils, and eraser dust. The candle poised on top was full and strong, unburnt, not even lit. “To be fully honest with you, I started out making this series for myself, as a kind of therapy. I didn’t think I was going to sell them. But then I finished up, and figured, hmm, there’s something here.”

He was already moving on to the next one, reaching out as if to brush it with his fingertips before dropping his hand at the last second, probably hearing Shira’s voice in his head. Don’t touch the art. “And this—this is when I left.”

Shira hated to brag—okay, that was a lie; she loved to brag, though hated to be perceived as bragging—but she thought this one was her finest of the series. The painting overflowed with emotion, everywhere from the water spilling from the cup to the uneven brushstrokes that left everything feeling slightly off-kilter. The candle was leaning to one side, just sparking to life, as if she were preparing to remember.

The rest of the series continued apace. Each one centered a stage in her life and the things that were most significant during them, the things she wanted or didn’t want to remember from each one, along with the development of the memory candle itself: As more time passed and the cup filled with more things, losing some and gaining others, the candle burned farther and farther down. In the last one in the series, the candle was out, a puff of black smoke indicating that it had just happened.

They were very different paintings from what she’d done before, from the sort of things Danica was doing. She hated that she still thought in terms like that, but she couldn’t help it. And yet she thought it was okay. She didn’t have to be edgy, experimental, profound. She could just be her.

Shira took a deep breath. She’d thought for a long time about how she was going to say this next part. “You’re in all of them,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed. Even in the one from my college years, when we were apart. Because you helped build the foundation of who I am. I don’t totally know who I am without you, and I’m grateful for it.” She reached out and took his hand. If he tensed at all, if he displayed any sign that he didn’t want her touching him, she’d drop it immediately.

But he didn’t. He squeezed. Emboldened, she went on. “So much has changed over the past…how many years has it been since we reunited? Six?” She knew perfectly well how many years it had been but didn’t want to be weird about it. “I’ve certainly changed. I’ve grown a lot. But you’ll always know the core of me. You’ll always be part of the core of me. And I hope we’ll always know each other.”

He was studying her like she was a book he desperately wanted to finish, to know how it ended. She coughed to dislodge the sudden lump in her throat. “Anyway, there wasn’t room on the wall for all the paintings, so the final one is in the closet there.”

He didn’t question her, just opened the door to the linen closet. And nearly fell over. “Jesus Christ,” he wheezed, clutching his chest. Shira was alarmed for a moment until she realized he was smiling. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“No,” she said. “But he might be.”

The maniacally grinning Mensch on a Bench, dug up from the depths of her closet, leaned forward from his perch among the hand towels, almost as if he were about to dive forward and rip out Leo’s throat with his teeth. Leo shuddered, slamming the door. “I can’t believe he didn’t figure into your memory candles.”

“Our relationship is too private for that,” Shira said. The Mensch on a Bench had defused some of the tension in the hallway, making it easy to move again. But Leo’s face sobered as his eyes focused on hers once more.

“I have to show you something too.”

“Okay,” she said.