I check to see if he’s blushing like I am, but his back is turned as he absently straightens ornaments on the tree. Maybe I’m imagining that spark of interest. Maybe I’m projecting.

Our little moment that I’m going to spend the rest of the day overthinking is rapidly smashed by relatives clomping downstairs. Grandma has no qualms taking advantage of Hall’s generosity, so she requests pancakes. Hall then takes advantage of my preoccupation by roping me into helping him, and before I know it I’m in an apron, adding blueberries to batter.

We take turns ruining Felix’s morning by hugging him and giving our final goodbyes. Kaia gives him a tarot reading and draws the Seven of Swords, which none of us know anything about, but Kaia looks pretty grim. Even though Felix says he doesn’t believe in tarot, he makes her do another reading. She pulls a Two of Swords for him this time and says nothing, only shakes her head. Felix is too green to eat breakfast. When at last Sean’s car zips up the steep driveway with Marilou in the passenger seat, he hides behind the Christmas tree. “Callista started it. She brought all of this on. I think she’s trying to sabotage my relationship.”

“It takes two to let that happen,” Mom points out. It’s as close as she can come to chastising him.

But when Marilou pokes her head into the living room, calling out, “Knock, knock! Merry Christmas!” it would seem all of Felix’s worries were for nothing.

“You feeling all right?” Marilou asks him, stretching up on tiptoe to kiss her husband’s cheek. It should be noted that baby Adrian, bundled in her arms, wears a scrunched expression, as if disappointed in his father.

“Uhhhhh.” Felix’s stare follows her warily about the room.

*

He’s still twitchy two hours later, unwilling to trust Marilou’s light, easy chatter. He thinks she’ll bring up his contact with Callista the second he gets comfortable. But if she doesn’t really know, he certainly isn’t going to tell her. Every time Marilou speaks, Dad glares at Felix.

“I’m not cheating,” he persists when she excuses herself to go nurse Adrian. “Callista keeps contacting me from new phone numbers. Stop looking at me like that.”

“How you could get any woman interested in you is a mystery to me,” Grandma replies frankly, enjoying her glass of cabernet. It is almost one in the afternoon.

“Mom,” my mother says chidingly. “Felix is a good boy. A real catch!”

Felix is petulant. “I’m not a boy, I’m a man.”

Kaia pats him on the back. Today she’s smudged her thick black eyeliner in streaks that extend all the way to her ears, wearing a fitted black suit complete with a white cravat around her throat. “There, there, champ. Your balls will drop one day.”

“I’ve sired seven children! That I know of!”

They bicker until Marilou returns, Felix pinching Kaia’s knee under the kitchen table to shut her up. She quickly lifts her knee, smashing his hand into the table. Tears spring to his eyes. He tells her she looks like a postapocalyptic butler.