Inside Granny’s, the kids joked about the possessed toilet until they started getting crude and Lynn was forced to change the subject. Thomas ordered a pecan waffle with bacon while Sara got chocolate-chip pancakes that came out looking more like a sundae than breakfast.

Talk turned to Christmas and Thomas asked a question that Lynn had asked herself several times.

“Are we really going to get those Christmas presents we asked for?”

Lynn finished the bite of her omelet. “I’m sure you will. I’m heading to the Salvation Army today to give them your lists. Then I’ll have to go there a few days before Christmas to pick them up.”

“You don’t have to do anything to get them?” Thomas asked. “Like trade in Sara for them?”

“Ha ha,” Sara said.

“They’ve been doing this for years. That’s what the woman I spoke to on the phone at the Salvation Army said. She said they’ve got it down to a science. It’s very organized. I just bring my identification and everything else should be taken care of.”

“Is Dad sending us presents?”

“No,” Thomas said to Sara in an annoyed voice. He reached over with his fork and took a bite of her pancake.

“Stop.”

“You can have some of mine.”

“I don’t like pecans.”

“Picky.”

“Sweetie, your father doesn’t know where we are,” Lynn reminded Sara.

“Like, forever?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Lynn said. “Not forever. Just at the moment.”

I’m taking it a day at a time, sweetie, so I can’t speak for forever.

“So we’re not going to get Christmas presents from Dad for the second year in a row?” Sara said.

Lynn glanced at her daughter. She loved her little girl to death but sometimes she hated that selfish and whiny tone. Sara wasn’t always like that. But sometimes she just couldn’t help herself.

“We need to be thankful for what we have,” Lynn said. “Like the nice tip last night that allowed us to go out.”

“I’m thankful for the bathrooms at this place,” Thomas said.

They laughed again, and Sara started talking about the water shooting up from the toilet bowl. It was amazing how bathroom humor never seemed to get old when you were a kid.

As they finished their meal and the bill came, Lynn thought about the tip. Then she realized that there was no way she couldn’t be generous, not after last night. She shuffled through the singles in her wallet and pulled aside ten of them for the server, a young woman probably in her twenties.

Maybe generosity can be contagious.

Lynn hoped that it might be.

On the way out the door, they passed a small, decorated Christmas tree with presents underneath. She doubted that Mr. Sinclair had gotten a chance to come by the trailer to fix the toilet.

“Hey guys—I’ve got an idea,” she told them. “Want to go find a Christmas tree?”