She had told her parents she’d come home for a few days over Christmas. They’d been so set against her going to Credence it had been a concession she’d been willing to make to get them off her back about her Colorado plans. Not that she needed their approval or permission to leave—she was a grown-ass woman who left home regularly for painting gigs all around the country.

She’d just been tired of the constant conversations they’d had about it, and frankly, Suzanne wasn’t the kind of person who liked to cause her parents angst. She’d been primed from a young age that it wasn’t good for her mom’s creative process.

But, even as she’d made the concession, she’d had absolutely no intention of following through with it. Part of the reason she’d chosen to travel to Credence when she had was so she didn’t have to spend another soulless Christmas with her parents. She loved them dearly, but they just didn’t do Christmas.

Not the way she’d always yearned for. Not the way all her friends’ parents had, the way the rest of the country seemed to, the way Winona had promised she would. Not in that big, fat Hallmark way with miles of garland and tinsel and mistletoe and a huge fuck-off tree bursting with baubles and lights and looking so damn pretty, a person couldn’t help but sigh every time they gazed upon its glory.

Simone St. Michelle’s idea of a tree was a minimalist structure from the latest name in the art world made out of bent wire coat hangers she’d bought at a gallery twenty years ago. It had a single ice-blue light at the top, twisted within the wire like it was in some kind of prison. Apparently, it was a statement about the commercialization of the season.

There wasn’t a piece of holly, a single candy cane, or a carol to be heard at the brownstone.

Suzanne had complained bitterly about her parents’ lack of Christmas cheer over the years to no avail. She’d been so jealous of school friends’ houses that had glowed—inside and out—with seasonal joy. One of her favorite things to do in December was to go with her friends to check out the window displays at Bloomingdale’s and Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue, then finish up at Rockefeller Center to ice skate beneath the massive Christmas tree.

That ice rink was her Christmas happy place and made it bearable going home to a wire tree with a solitary blue light. And this year, her happy place was with Winona. It wasn’t at Winona’s house on the lake as they’d hoped, but the boardinghouse in town was going the full Christmas with garlands and a real tree and carols and homemade eggnog.

And Suzanne wasn’t going to trade that for a wire tree and a posh restaurant that specialized in deconstructed festive menus. Seriously, who did that? Wasn’t that a sin against Jesus?

Unfortunately, she hadn’t yet thought of an excuse to give to her parents for not returning to New York. Frankly, she’d been hoping the Colorado weather would come to the party and she could use unsafe travel conditions as a valid excuse. With snow predicted next week, her chances had been looking up but, apparently, this conversation was happening now.