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“I guess you’ve got your reasons.”
    Ron and Blonde make trail mix from dried fruit, and Jack wants to explain that staying in Cleveland has nothing to do with Mona, that it doesn’t mean he’s going to get married or buy a dog, that it’s simply practical.
    â€œIf you drive me to work, you can have my car tomorrow,” Jack says instead. Connor nods and yawns.
    Maybe Jack senses the change in his brother’s breathing or catches a glimpse of Connor’s head, arched at an odd angle against the top of the couch, but he doesn’t expect any answer when he asks, “Do you think it’s weird we never had a Christmas tree?”
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    The tree in Mona’s parents’ house is huge. Even as he’s pulling the car into the driveway, Jack sees it through the living room’s full-length window, its star squashed against the ceiling. He visited her parents’ place before and found it nice, if a bit quaint, with all the dark wood and heavy furniture. Now it’s barely recognizable, every cubic foot of the wood and brick two-story blinking with colored bulbs, a life-size manger scene in the front yard and plastic Santa in a plastic sleigh with plastic reindeer mounted on the roof. Parking the car, he looks at Mona and waits for her to apologize for the house like she apologizes for everything else.
    â€œWouldn’t it be great if it snowed tonight?” She smiles, pats his knee, and bounces out of the car.
    Reaching into the back, he shakes his brother awake.
    â€œWelcome to Jesusland,” Jack says.
    Mona’s parents, like their house, have undergone a bizarre holiday transformation. Her father, a professor of Civil War history at OU, is wearing a corduroy jacket with elbow patches, while Mrs. Lockridge, thick through the hips and thighs, is in one of those seasonal sweaters—this one depicts the twelve days of Christmas with gold thread and sequins. Instantly Jack is uncomfortable in a way he hasn’t been since sophomore year at Penn when a girl he was dating dragged him to a “Take Back the Night” rally.
    â€œGood to see you, son.” Mona’s father extends his hand, while her mother hugs Connor, whom she’s never met.
    Three years younger, Mona’s sister Frankie shivers in the doorway, wearing a skintight T-shirt and lots of purple lipstick. Red curls cropped at her jawline, five silver studs dotting the curl of her right ear, body firm like only the bodies of twenty-year-old girls are firm—Frankie could be the ghost of Mona past.
    â€œThank God you guys are finally here,” she says, though she’s looking exclusively at Connor, who’s still wobbly with sleep like a newborn calf. “Mom’s making us all crazy. Maybe now she’ll chill.”
    Mona’s mother mock swats Frankie’s shoulder, and the six of them carry three overnight bags and boxes of presents (including the food dehydrator, which Mona wrapped the night before) into the house, where holiday music oozes from every room. Upstairs, Mrs. Lockridge assigns bedrooms with exaggerated gestures. Jack and Connor can sleep in Frankie’s room; Frankie can bunk with Mona’s older sister, Melanie; Mona gets her childhood bedroom, aggressively pink, with bookcases of worn stuffed bears and dolls in costumes from around the world.
    Setting Mona’s duffel bag on the lacy bedspread, Jack tugs Mona’s hand, pulls her back in the room when everyone else has left, and somewhere in the house Eartha Kitt is crooning that Santa Baby shouldn’t keep her waiting.
    â€œYou told your parents you moved in with me, right?” he asks. “And they’re okay with that?”
    â€œYes.” She laughs lightly. “You can sleep with me tonight. Mom just put you and Connor together for Frankie—it’s one of those things my parents do. They pretend she’s still a