Everything was white. There were snowflakes on Elv’s eyelashes. Inside the tunnel there was the smell of piss and hay, not that it mattered. Elv heard a wolf in the zoo. She thought of all the animals out in the snow in New York City; she thought of the time Claire stole a horse just to please her. She loved her sister and Claire loved her back and they didn’t even have to speak to understand each other. She wondered if the carousel horses were still in the park or if they’d run away too. Elv shrugged off the cashmere coat she’d borrowed from her grandmother’s closet. She told Lorry she couldn’t sneak him into her grandmother’s apartment the way he’d come to the house in North Point Harbor. Her grandmother would have a heart attack or something, and the apartment wasn’t that big. For the past few days, Lorry had been living hand to mouth, staying with friends, waiting for a big break-in to go down someplace in Great Neck. Elv hated lying to him, but she claimed the apartment was haunted by her grandfather’s ghost. Lorry had a fear of ghosts. He said that was the only thing he’d worried about when he’d lived underground. There were so many ghosts down below you could hear them moaning in the night.

Elv knelt with her back against the tunnel and offered him her arm. She laughed when he said he hoped it wasn’t becoming her fatal flaw. “That’s you, baby,” she said, leaning to kiss his cheek. She didn’t like to put the needle in—the metal scared her. It made her think of handcuffs, pricked fingers, blood seeping down, a sleep that lasted a hundred years. She gazed at the graffiti on the wall. It all looked like Arnish to her, only she couldn’t understand that language anymore. Lorry took something out of his pocket, a small velvet box. He tossed it to her. Inside was an emerald ring with a red-gold band. It was exquisite.

“Just so you know I’m not playing,” he said.

She leaned to kiss him. She belonged where she was, with him. Everything was beautiful, especially the snow. After Lorry got high, he put his head in her lap and closed his eyes. He sang “Blackbird,” such a beautiful, sad song. He told her he sang that song when he buried his dog in the park, when he stood there alone in the greening light, having lost his best friend, his only protector. Elv studied his face. He was perfect. He was always there for her. She gazed at the falling snow. She could still hear the wolves in the zoo. They listened together.

She took him to her grandmother’s the next time her ama went out for the evening.

NATALIA WENT TO dinner on Long Island with Elise and Mary Fox. She was caught by a snowstorm and had to spend the weekend. “Don’t worry,” Elv said. “I have tons of canned soup and frozen pizza. I don’t even have to go out.” When Elise and Mary brought Natalia home, they were shocked by what they found. Mary went to the spare bedroom. There was Elv, passed out on the bed, naked. Mary noticed the glint of needles in an ashtray before she went back to the hall. The door to the bathroom was open. Lorry had a towel wrapped around him. His dark hair was slicked back.

They didn’t know his name or anything about him, only that he threw on his clothes and skulked past them, put out, as if they were the intruders. “Tell her I’ll be back,” he said. He was a whirl wind, handsome, sure of himself. Natalia could see how he could enthrall a young girl, to whom he would seem forbidden, beautiful. She might not notice that wherever he went, destruction followed.

Annie drove in the next morning and waited for Elv to explain herself. Elv had been crying and she was exhausted. Natalia seemed so disappointed; she looked her age, a woman who didn’t know how to handle her favorite granddaughter. Elv was fidgety and apprehensive. She wore the emerald on her left hand.

“Where did you get that?” Annie demanded. “Have you seen it before?” she asked Natalia.

“It’s mine,” Elv declared. She hid her hand. “I didn’t steal it from Ama if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Did you get it from that man?”

“That man cares about me. Unlike you.”

“She can stay here,” Natalia said. “We’ll talk things over. We’ll figure out how to make it work.”

“It’s unworkable,” Annie said. “I’m not having her do this to you.”

“Do what to her? I would never hurt you,” Elv told her ama.

They left and went down to the car, parked around the block. Elv got in and slumped down. She was tapping her foot. She looked ready to explode.

“Elv. You know I care.”

Elv stared out the window. She wasn’t listening to her mother. She was biting her nails. “You’re going to look back on this and see what a terrible mother you were.”

“That man is not to come to our house.”

“Do you think you can make me listen to you?”

Annie reached across Elv and opened the car door. “Then don’t come home. Go to a residential school.”

Elv glared at her mother, then pulled the door shut. It was freezing out there. It was so cold your fingertips could turn blue in seconds flat. She’d known all that talk about caring was a big fat lie. “Fine,” she said bitterly.

“Fine,” Annie agreed. It should have felt like a victory, but it felt like a loss. It took them a long time to get home because of the road conditions. Even so, they didn’t speak a word.

THE WINTER LASTED forever, with record snowfalls reported. It was March and still snowing. And then, one morning, Claire awoke to find it was spring. It was a Sunday and the bluebells on the lawn had suddenly appeared. When she went downstairs, her mother was already dressed. Annie was going into the city to have lunch with Natalia. Their relationship had been strained since the incident with Lorry. They usually agreed on the important things, but not anymore. Natalia felt Elv should move in with her again, but Annie seemed to have given up hope.