She stood there a moment longer. Then she turned, and the boy in the red jacket was standing three feet away, having materialized out of the snow the way nine-year-old boys do, with his pom-pom crooked and his cheeks blazing and his eyes enormous and innocent.
"Joseph Francis DeLuca," Lena said.
"Hi, Aunt Lena."
"Did you throw that snowball at me?"
"What snowball?"
"Did you throw that snowball at me and then blame a grown man who was standing by a car minding his own business?"
Her nephew considered this with the gravity of a defense attorney. He had his grandfather's eyes, brown and quick and full of mischief, and his grandfather's habit of tilting his head to one side when he was deciding how much of the truth a situation required.
"He's nice," Joey said finally. "Danny. He built us a fort. It's got a tunnel and a window and a shelf for ammo. He knows how to make the snow go hard so it doesn't fall in. You pour water on it at night." He paused. "He gave us each a quarter for carrying lamps."