When Kate was little, Mary-Sue would reserve a table at a local hotel every Christmas and take her there for ham, turkey, and pumpkin pie, not because Mary-Sue enjoyed that type of food—she hated tradition—but just so Kate could partake in the cultural norm. Afterwards, they’d go home to watch figure skating and drink mugs of hot Swiss Miss cocoa. There were a handful of exceptions, as when they got dressed up and joined the family table at the home of one of Mary-Sue’s co-workers, but these invitations were always one-offs. Tradition for them consisted of three constants—Kate, Mary-Sue and anonymous strangers. After they began living apart, Kate would accept holiday invitations at the homes of friends where the spreads were vast and the mood convivial, but she’d always feel nostalgia for those bland hotel dinners with Mary-Sue, especially the way Mary-Sue would shrug with clockwork predictability and comic exaggeration as she paid the check: “The good news is—no dishes!”

The doorbell rang at four. They were here, the mysterious dear others that populated her mother’s world, yet whom she’d consistently failed to bring up in conversation. Her home now ran on old people time—dinner at five, bed at nine, rise at four to write letters to their councilman. Mary-Sue clopped down the stairs in dress shoes and red Amway lipstick a little caked with age. Kate winced—she’d never seen her wear makeup, ever. And there was perfume. Her mother seemed embalmed.

“My Lord! That’s one fine-smelling turkey,” one of the two men at the door exclaimed. “And you, my pretty, are one fine-smelling gal!” Mary-Sue hugged her guests warmly—more warmly, Kate thought, than she hugged her—and introduced them, snickering, as the “two Bills,” B. S. and B. M. The men cackled in naughty glee. They were Bill Spragg and Bill Matthiessen, orchid growers from Homestead, both in their early sixties and evidently good-natured folk. B. S. was the sloppy one with the paunch while B. M. was tall, sinewy and Scandinavian in look, though it was he who was the more garrulous. Were they life partners or just business partners? Kate had no idea and didn’t dare ask; Mary-Sue made no effort to clarify.

“Your mother told us she’s going traditional this year on account of you. None of her usual cooter and gator stew.” B. M. turned to Mary-Sue. “We had quite the Everglades Christmas last year, didn’t we, darling? Too bad about Larry’s stomach trouble, though. I blame the turtle.” He handed a bouquet of purple orchids to Kate, “FYI, these are vandas, the Jackie Collins of the orchid world. Tourists love ’em.” He lowered his voice, “Your mother shouldn’t, yet she does.”