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of Ethan and me in Mexico three years earlier.
How happy we looked.
I sighed and turned back to Abby. “Frank wants me to write about the storm.”
    She shrugged. “So? Doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.”
    “That’s just it,” I said. “There’s nothing
big
about it. You can’t write a story about weather—a good one, anyway.” I collected some loose papers on my desk and straightened them into a neat stack, shaking my head. “I don’t know, Abs. Maybe it’s me. I can’t seem to get excited about
any
story these days.”
    “Honey, then take yourself off the piece,” she said. “Do you want me to talk to Frank about giving you some days off? You know, you never really stopped to rest after”—she paused to search my face, for permission, perhaps to say what came next—“after your hospital stay. Besides, unlike me, you, my dear, have job security. You’re a Kensington, after all. You can call the shots.”
    I wadded up a press release on my desk and tossed it in Abby’s direction with a grin. “Very cute,” I said. “I may have married a Kensington, but I am
not
a Kensington.”
    Ethan’s family owned the newspaper, one of the last family-owned dailies in the country. I’d been writing under my given name, Claire Aldridge, before I met him, so it didn’t make senseprofessionally to change it. Besides, I rather liked the statement it made to his very traditional parents, Glenda and Edward Kensington. Both shareholders in the newspaper, they managed the business from afar, leaving Ethan to run the day-to-day affairs, since his sister, Leslie, had no interest in holding down a real job, with her schedule studded with society events and salon appointments. His grandfather, Warren, the paper’s patriarchal editor in chief, checked in less now that he was in his eighties and in ailing health, but his name remained at the top of the masthead.
    The newspaper, founded by Ethan’s great-grandfather at the turn of the century, was a family institution, one all Kensingtons, including our future children, if we had them, were expected to participate in.
    “Well,” Abby continued, “I still think you should play the Kensington card and get some R and R. It’s been a tough year. Why not give yourself some time to regroup, rest?”
    While I was quick to change the subject when others brought up the past, it didn’t bother me when Abby did. “Thanks,” I said, nodding. “But I’m fine. Really.”
    I looked up to see Frank’s face peeking over the top of my cubicle, pencil firmly planted in mouth. “There you are,” he said. I could hear the urgency in his voice. “Anything to report?”
    I cocked my head to the right, wondering if pencils still contained the type of lead that causes poisoning. Perhaps that could explain Frank’s slightly neurotic behavior. “Report?”
    “On the
story
.”
    “Oh, yes,” I said. “I was just, uh, talking to Abby about that.”
    “Good,” he said, tucking the pencil behind his ear. “Get me an update by this afternoon, if you can.”
    “Will do,” I replied, nodding as Frank spun around and walked back to his office.
    I turned to Abby. “Help.”
    She clasped her hands in her lap. “So, a story about a snowstorm.”
    “Yup.”
    “Remember what I said about taking some time off?”
    “Not going to do it.”
    She nodded. “All right, then, let’s get to work. Have you started interviewing?”
    I shook my head.
    “What’s your angle?”
    “I don’t have one.” I sighed in defeat, before remembering what Frank had said about the storm in 1933. “Frank wants to title the piece ‘Blackberry Winter.’”
    “Blackberry what?”
    I tried to focus. “Winter. It’s what forecasters call a late-season cold-weather event, I guess. Frank said something about a similar storm happening on the same day in 1933. It practically crippled the city.”
    Abby sat up straighter in her chair. “You’re kidding.”
    I shrugged. “Frank has this crazy