It was the first Christmas she had been without him in seven years. Elise sat in the car outside her mother’s house, engine idling, thinking about Leon. She could not stop thinking about him since running into him just a few weeks prior. He seemed so healthy, so vibrant—better than she had ever seen…

  The record player skipped and crackled and repeated, “there’s a…there’s a…” “What is it, Ella? There’s a WHAT?” Leon chuckled to himself as he jumped over the couch and shuffled down the hall to the turntable. He gingerly lifted the needle and placed it just forward of the spot that “Ella” had been having…