Everyone was asleep, save for Ollie and Hank. They too were tired, with full bellies and other appetites sated in their damnably creaking bed. But it had become their habit, back when Hank still smoked, to crawl out onto the roof covering their porch outside their bedroom window to admire the night.
Now they sat next to one another, Hank in sweats and an old T-shirt and Ollie in flannel pajamas, a quilt wrapped around the both of them to ward off the damp chill hanging in the November air. Ollie’s grandmother, his nona, had made the quilt long ago, fashioning it from old dresses she had worn as a girl in Sicily. The quilt was faded, ragged, and a tumble through a modern-day washing machine would probably obliterate it, but Ollie treasured it for its humble warmth and the memories stored i
