The only thing that made Hudson feel better was the theory that their mother really did love him more than Tobias, and she felt guilty. Giving in to his brother, then, was only her way of protecting them both—him from Tobias, and Tobias from himself. But, it was only a theory.

“It’s dangerous for you,” was all Hudson would allow himself to say. He pushed his ham around on his plate.

“The world is dangerous,” challenged Tobias.

“You shouldn’t have gone there!” The sharpness of his own voice startled him. His fist pounded the table, causing his fork to fly out of his hand. A crack across the cheek made everything go silent. His glasses crunched against the bridge of his nose and he knew they were broken.

Despite her barely five-foot stature, Phoebe Shannon had the ability to tower over anyone. Her chest heaved up and down, her jaw set. Her cheeks glowed as red as the ornaments on the tree. “What did I tell you boys about fighting?” she spat. “I’ll have none of it. Not tonight. Now, if you can’t love your brother for one night out of the year, Ryan, you’ll have to go. And don’t ever think about setting foot in this house again. Not ’til you quit with all this good guy, bad guy nonsense. God made you no better than the rest of us. It’s time you learn that.”

Hudson sat still. His feet felt cemented to the floor and his mouth filled with the taste of blood from having bitten his tongue. It had been years since she’d slapped him like that. But her words stung more. He righted his glasses as much as possible, then stood. His chair scraped across the floor. The snow had only just melted off his shoes when he shoved his feet back into them and grabbed his coat.

“Ryan—” his mom called, but Tobias stood and wrapped his arm over her shoulders.

“Let him go, Ma. He ain’t one of us no more. Never fuckin’ was.”

19 MORGAN

Morgan sat at the breakfast table, bouncing her feet, both of which were engulfed in new Homer Simpson slippers. She’d opened them just twenty minutes ago, along with a set of pajamas, a bright red stocking cap with the Duff label stitched on the cuff, and a fleece blanket that looked like the quintessential big pink donut.

Every Christmas since she could remember, her parents had showered her with Simpsons stuff—likely due to the fact that it was Christmas morning when she showed up at the Moris’ house all those years ago, with a secondhand jacket and a vise grip on her Bart Simpson doll.

She was adopted. That fact had never been kept a secret from her. How could it have been when she remembered sitting slumped in a pilled maroon chair in the caseworker’s office, her swinging feet barely grazing the carpet. At the ripe old age of ten, she was planted on her new and improved mom and dad’s doorstep. Ta-da!