“Well, yes,” her mother said, “but is he nice?”

Jules groaned and took another sip of coffee. “Can we please change the subject?”

There was a pause. Then her mom said, a bit hesitantly, “Any…girls?”

Jules almost choked on her coffee.

“I’m just asking. I remember in college, you and—what’s her name?”

“Chelsea,” Jules said, her hands tightening on her mug. Chelsea had been a brief relationship in her junior year at Penn. They’d spent four months together before deciding they were incompatible, and Jules had met Aaron shortly after that. It was the only relationship with a woman she’d ever had, and sometimes she thought it had been a mistake to tell her parents. It let them ask awkward questions about more than one gender while clearly hoping she’d pick one over the other.

“Yes, Chelsea! So, you know, any girls?” Her mom’s voice was too bright, too full of hope that Jules would say no.

“No,” Jules said, trying not to sound depressed about it.

She gave her mom credit for keeping the relief off her face. “Well, just as long as you’re happy, honey.”

“Oh yeah.” Jules rose to her feet and took her coffee cup to the sink, even though it was still a quarter full. “I’m happy, Mom. Trust me.”

* * *

The morning of Christmas Eve dawned. Jules woke up already excited, as if she were a kid again.

The Morettis’ Christmas Eve followed a well-ordered tradition. It was filled with delicious food and last-minute gift wrapping. Jules’s grandparents arrived for dinner, armed with hugs for Jules, Robin, and Robin’s fiancé, Rick. Post-midnight mass, the family stayed up late drinking eggnog and singing Christmas carols, the quality of which decreased correspondingly with the eggnog intake.

By two o’clock in the morning, they’d be laughing more than they were singing and would applaud themselves before staggering off to bed. The older she got, the more Jules grew to appreciate it; time with her family felt more precious than any gift she’d receive the next morning.

Thinking of this and looking forward to the evening, Jules was ensconced in the recliner in the den. Might be time for a nap. She was just contemplating the climb upstairs to her bedroom when she heard her phone ringing in the kitchen. Groaning, she lumbered to her feet.

She idly checked the screen. Then she gasped. Vivian was calling. Vivian was calling. And even after all the surprises of the past few months, it seemed highly unlikely she just wanted to wish Jules a merry Christmas Eve.

Her father, who was sitting at the kitchen table, looked up from his newspaper. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Jules lied as she answered the phone. “Hello, Vivian?”

Her father sat up ramrod straight. “You’re kidding. Isn’t she in Lon—”

She held up a hand for silence as Vivian barked, “Michelle has pneumonia.”