The Lights We Kept

In the heart of a long, unrelenting winter, five coworkers; Curtis, Riley, Steve, Marcy, and their calm anchor, Nina; begin gathering after hours at a small apartment lit by an old angel figurine and a tangled strand of lights. What starts as a quiet escape from the season's weight turns into something deeper: a lifeline woven from shared silence, soft laughter, and the unspoken understanding of lives heavy with grief, change, and responsibility. Each carries something they can't shake alone. Curtis, still shadowed by the absence of his sister, finds purpose in a small act of service that grows beyond what he imagined. Riley, long caught between her divorced parents, learns to stand on her own terms. Steve, a single father worn thin by exhaustion, begins to trust that his children; and he himself; can find steadiness again. Marcy, estranged from her mother and tethered to unopened letters from her late father, faces the past she's avoided for years. And Nina, the quiet center of their orbit, helps each of them hold their weight without ever demanding the spotlight herself. Through nights of tea and cocoa, murmured confessions, and moments of soft laughter, they find a warmth that winter; and the struggles it carried; can't extinguish. As the season finally yields to spring, each of them must step back into their separate lives. But the light they've kept alive together; the quiet bond that softened the cold; becomes something they'll carry forward, a reminder that the warmth we build together can outlast even the longest winters.