A few neighbors stop by to say hello. Granma has been living in the house for over fifty years, and a lot of the people she used to know on her street have died or moved out, but there are new families around with small kids, and sometimes the mothers ring the doorbell. (“Checking up on me,” Granma calls it.) Someone brings gingerbread cookies, and I eat one politely. Mom makes coffee; they sit around and gossip. “It must be so nice for you to have a full house again.” That’s the kind of thing they say. I’m glad when they go.

Afterward, we sit down to Christmas dinner—on the dark wood table that usually lives in a corner of the living room. “Where you can see the Christmas tree,” Mom says. She puts on a fancy cloth and lights candles. We’re all pretty sick of turkey after Thanksgiving, so Granma makes a brisket, which is easier, and everybody likes it more anyway.

“I don’t believe in food as punishment,” she says.

After dinner, I call Jake again. But the phone keeps ringing and the answering machine clicks on again.

We open our presents. I get two big ones and a lot of small ones. The big present from Granma is an old pocket watch, the kind that you hang on a chain, which my grandpa used to wear. When he was young, he served in the merchant marine. He helped carry supplies to soldiers in the Second World War. Granma likes to tell me stories. He worked in the engine room. A lot of cargo ships were lost, torpedoed by the Germans. The back of the watch has a logo on it that says Acta Non Verba and Kings Point 1943.

“Do you know what that means?” Granma asks. “Acta non verba?”

“No.” I hold the watch to my ear to listen to it ticking.

“Actions, not words.”

“Great.” Mom rolls her eyes. “That’s just what he needs to hear. Because Ben’s real problem is that he talks too much, right? He sits there in school every day eating lunch by himself. . . . I have to pay him to talk.”

“Acta non verba,” I say, and Granma laughs. “Anyway, you never did pay me.”

“That’s because you never talked,” Mom says.

My second big present is a new fountain pen with a gold nib in a velvet case that shuts with a loud snap. A pack of ink cartridges, too. I also get a diary with a leather cover and a page for each day of the year. “You’ve got a lot going on, stuff you might want to remember,” Granma says. “This way you can write it down.”

I give her a hug, then I give Mom a hug. It used to be, when I hugged her, that my arms went around her waist. Now I can feel something under her shirt at the back—her bra strap. My head is at her shoulder, I let go pretty soon. When we’re finished unwrapping, I ask, “Can I call Jake again?”