The key was a cold, solid weight in my palm, but the look on Derek’s face—that fragile, hopeful smile at the prospect of my father teaching him to make tangyuan—was a warmth that flooded my core.
We stayed on the couch as the credits of It’s a Wonderful Life rolled, not moving, letting the quiet of the Christmas afternoon settle around us like the snow outside. The phone call from my family had been a seismic shift, but in its aftermath, the dust of the old explosion still hung in the air of this room. The gala, the fight, the confession—they were ghosts in the corners, their echoes faint but persistent.
Derek’s smile slowly faded, replaced by a pensive stillness. His thumb traced the rim of his empty glass. “He listened,” he said again, more to himself than to me. “Marcus listened. That
