Cooper Dayton leaned back against the outdoor café table as another mob of screeching, giggling children swarmed past. The National Zoo in DC was hosting its annual holiday event, inviting guests to stay past regular hours, don costumes, sing spooky songs and roam the decorated paths between animal exhibits and treat stations. Off the top of his head, Cooper could not imagine a place he’d less like to be.

Fortunately, his own costumed niece, eleven-year-old Cayla, seemed similarly skeptical of the proceedings. They’d managed to avoid the carousel and—Cooper shuddered—kid karaoke station in favor of the quieter areas where Cayla could point out various animals to Cooper and tell him everything she knew about them. What she knew turned out to be a lot. She’d known the exhibits like the back of her hand ever since her mother, Sophie, an expert in all things reptilian, had been asked on as a temporary consultant for some kind of conservation video series the zoo was developing.

Meanwhile, Cooper’s brother Dean had left his old job and started working from home, so he and the animal-enthusiastic Cayla would drive to DC with Sophie once a week to spend the day at the zoo together. They’d tried to convince Cooper to come along many times, but it was Cooper’s father, Ed Dayton, who had shown up at the house this morning insisting that the whole family was going in costume and if Cooper didn’t pin this sunflower to his head and join them for Boo at the Zoo he would “break Cayla’s heart.”

More like coup at the zoo, Cooper thought, pulling off the too-tight headband with the big plastic flower hot-glued to the top as his father waded through a particularly contentious pileup of children with ease. Ed sat on the bench next to Cooper, sighing heavily in the way of old, tired men and people who had just stood in line for a cup of zoo ice cream so small it was finished by the time you made it back to your table. Ed was both, and Cooper felt the brief, alarmed pang of recognizing your parent as mortal and unfamiliar.