I hear the music the second I open the front door. The Grinch. Someone’s dug out our collection of Christmas DVDs, and the marathon has begun. Usually, Dad would recite the narrator’s lines, making faces as he and Penn strung lights around the top of the tree, where none of the rest of us can reach. Then Dad would drop his voice into bullfrog range and sing the Grinch song.

Tonight, Penn is singing, and I’m stunned by how much he sounds like my father. By how he can reach the top of the tree without even going up on his toes.

“Hey!” Landry beams at me, a strand of lights looped over her arm. “Shut the door! It’s cold!”

I shove the door closed and nearly trip over the couch in its new position, which made room for the tree in front of the window. “That’s a nice one!”

“It was on sale because the branches at the bottom were basically dead, but we just trimmed those off with Dad’s hedge trimmers,” Landry informs me.

“There’s hot cider in the kitchen,” my mom says. “Are you hungry?”

“I’ll grab a cookie,” I tell her. And I can’t stop staring. “Why is everyone in such a good mood?”

“It’s Christmas!” Landry grabs a Santa hat from the coffee table and props it on her head, so that the point with the little white ball flops over her right ear.

Mom smiles. Then she nods for me to join her in the kitchen. “Penn’s test results came back,” she whispers as she ladles steaming apple cider into a mug for me from the Crock-Pot where it’s being kept warm. “He’s not the father.”

“Well, that certainly explains his good mood.” He couldn’t possibly have been sure, in the same way a woman would be. “So that means Amira …?”

“If she’s the mother, it’s a huge coincidence,” Mom says. “And it has nothing to do with Penn.”

Then I owe her a huge apology.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. Because my mother is still smiling, but her eyes aren’t crinkling. Or shining.

“Nothing. It’s just … There’s a lot of pressure for us to identify that baby, and we’ve just hit another dead end.”

That’s not it. There’s more. But she’s not going to tell me. Not when tonight is so wonderful. So … normal.

Mom makes nachos for dinner, and we eat them on the couch, staring up at the Christmas tree while Miracle on 34th Street plays on the television. Penn even smiles at me. Twice.

The next day, I take a plate of leftover cookies to Amira’s house, but I have to ring three times before she answers the door. Her parents’ cars aren’t in the driveway, but hers is. Still, I guess she could have gone with one of—