Chapter 22: Stay

Elias's POV

On the fifth night, the storm took out the power at half past nine.

The lamp died, then the refrigerator, then the hum of the whole building.

I sat in the dark kitchen with a pencil in my hand and listened to the rain hit the fire escape.

Ingrid had gone home at six, ahead of the weather.

Down the hall, a door opened.

"Elias?" Adeline said.

"I'm here. It's the whole block."

"I know." Her voice was steady and small. "It's cold. The radiator's stopped."

I took the flashlight from the drawer and went to find her.

She stood in the doorway of the back room in a gray sweater.

She wore a pair of my old socks, which she had taken from the laundry without asking.

I decided not to mention that.

The single bed behind her had the quilt on it and nothing else.

"Is there another blanket?" I said.

"No."

"Mine is on my bed. It's the only other one."

I went and got it, a heavy wool one that had been my father's, and held it out to her.

She did not take it.

"You'll be cold," she said.

"I won't."

"The window in your room doesn't close. You told Ingrid so on Tuesday."

I had said it to Ingrid, in the kitchen, in the voice of a man who thought nobody was listening.

She had been listening, as she had been listening to everything for five days.

"We can't both use it in separate rooms," she said. "It's a wool blanket, not a miracle."

I stood there with the flashlight in one hand and the blanket in the other.

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