Afterward they walked—slowly, for the ankle—along Silverton's main street, past closed shopfronts with wreaths and a single strand of colored lights that blinked against the cold in a rhythm that suggested a faulty socket and a stubborn hope. Snow sifted down in polite flakes, nothing like the blizzard, the kind of snow that children catch on gloves. Ray offered his arm. Ellen took it, and the pole clicked along as a third companion.
"I turned down the job," she said when they reached the corner where the street opened toward the dark shape of the hills.
He stopped walking. A light blinked red, green, red. "When?"