As such, the Fortune Family Christmas Eve festivities that we are hosting just got a lot more complicated because it will only be me, Mama, Peggy, and Char’s baby. And Uncle Mossy. But he doesn’t say anything, so he doesn’t count.

Peg sits across from me with Daktari on her lap. She dips her bloated finger into a bowl of lukewarm gravy and pops it in his mouth. He slurps and coos, and the second he stops, she pulls her finger out, loads it up with more gravy and shoves it back in his mouth before he can protest.

“Char wants him vegetarian, you know,” I say, before dumping back the last swallow of my first glass of wine in weeks. It’s Christmas Eve, dammit. Probably my last. I should be basking in the joy of family and making merry with friends. But my family’s too messed up to bask in anything other than its own long-standing dysfunction, and my friends are a little short on merriment themselves.

For weeks, Allie has responded to all my texts — friendly questions like Any word on that job interview? or Your father and brothers smarten up yet? or Wanna come hang out with me? — with a single-word answer. “No.” Willy is still MIA with his cracked-out Chrissy Parsons drama. And Char, of course, is busy bonding with Horatio the ficus. So I’m jumping off the wagon myself. With bells on. We’re only on our salads, but I pour myself another glass.

“Oh, it’s only turkey gravy,” Peggy scoffs as she picks up the bowl and lets a greasy rivulet stream all over her plate of California salad. I lovingly plucked that organic spinach from the plastic carton. Lovingly rinsed and sliced the organic strawberries and toasted the slivered almonds. Lovingly dotted it with bits of artisanal goat cheese that Peggy picked out with her fingers and dumped back in the main bowl because it was “one of them hippy cheeses” that is not fit for the turkey gravy she’s dribbling over top of hers.

“Besides, if Missy Charlotte wants to have a say in how this baby is raised, she best smarten up,” Peg says, as if medication-resistant postpartum psychosis is just another dumb choice.

“I’d like to know how you ended up with that baby,” I say, even though I could probably make a pretty good guess at the answer.

Mama shoots me a dirty look. But Peggy seems pleased to tell me her version of the story. Turns out that Freddy and Dar, Char’s parents, did not just kick her out because she showed up with what Freddy called a “Halfrican baby.” They disowned her a few months ago when they found out she stole their credit cards and racked up enough debt to force them into bankruptcy, which cost them their cozy bungalow Down North. Freddy and Dar are now in a bachelor apartment in The Mines, living off canned beans and fried baloney. This was certainly not what they bargained for when they adopted her as a sparky, smiley, ginger-haired toddler. Now they don’t want her anywhere near them, lest she do them more damage.