Chapter 20: Lights

On the twenty-first of December, we hung Christmas lights on the roof without a single nail.

Lena had a plan, and the plan had a diagram.

She had drawn it on graph paper with a carpenter's pencil.

She held it in her gloved hand while the wind pulled at the corners.

"Plastic clips," she said. "They grip the edge of the parapet. No holes. No damage."

"No nails."

"I made that rule myself."

"You mean Hannah did."

"I mean we did." She looked at me over the paper. "I decided I'd keep that one."

We stood on the flat black roof in the early dark, in coats and hats.

Six strings of warm white bulbs lay in a tangle at our feet.

The city glittered beyond the brick.

Snow from last week still lay in gray crusts along the drains.

My breath smoked.

I loved her so much that for a second I couldn't speak.

"Cold?" Lena said.

"A little."

She tucked my scarf tighter around my neck.

"Hold this end."

I held the end.

She clipped the first bulb to the parapet, and the second.

I fed her the string hand over hand as she walked the edge.

It was a good, ordinary, quiet job.

Halfway around, she stopped and set her hands on her hips.

"This is the last year the roof will be mine alone," she said.

"Is it?"

"You have a key now."

She dug in her pocket and held up a brass key on a loop of red yarn.

"I had it cut on Thursday."

My throat tightened.

"The roof is Rule Eleven."

"Rule Eleven says the tenant goes up only with the owner." She dropped the key into my glove. "I'm revising it."

"To what?"

"The owner and the tenant go up whenever they like."

I stared at the key.

Then I stepped over the tangle of cords and kissed her so hard that she staggered back against the parapet.

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