On the Fourth of July 1970, all the cruisers from our sheriff’s department lined up on Main Street for a parade out to the bluff for fireworks. I was twelve that year, waiting for my share of the sparklers Ellis Flood was handing out to all the kids. He had a whole stash in his office, including smoke bombs and fountains and Red Rockets that said DO NOT HOLD IN HAND AFTER LIGHTING on the side of the orange-and-blue box—as if we needed to be told. But maybe we did.

I’d never been very comfortable with holidays. Celebrating typically meant chaos to me, the grown-ups in charge even more distracted and erratic than usual, giving themselves permission to cut loose even more than they did every day.

On Christmas morning when I was eight, I woke up early in our apartment in Redding to find my mother wasn’t in her bed in her room, wasn’t home at all. In the living room, the plastic tree that we’d put up the week before had only a wadded-up bedsheet beneath it where the presents were supposed to be. The tree lights had been left on overnight and threw blinking rainbow-colored eggs across the wall and the carpet. On the coffee table, next to an overflowing ashtray, three red-and-white felt stockings that still had the price tags on them were half hanging out of a Longs Drugs plastic bag.

I was just starting to put all the pieces together when the kids came out of their room and I had to think fast.

“Did Santa come?” Jason asked. He was wearing his Captain Kangaroo T-shirt and no pants, his stuffed cheetah, Freddy, by his side.

“He must be busy this year,” I covered quickly. “He’ll probably come tonight instead.”

“Where’s Robin?” Amy pulled her thumb out of her mouth to ask the question, and then quickly plugged herself back in, looking all around the room as I pushed her gently from behind.

“Helping Santa. Come on, let’s eat.”

Jason and Amy were my half brother and sister, four and five that year. Irish twins, my mother always called them, though I had no idea what she meant. Their own mom, Trish, had always been a bit of a mess and hadn’t come around for visitation in a long time. Our dad, Red, was doing time in county for armed robbery of a liquor store. He’d worn a ski mask, but had taken it off as soon as he was outside, and there were witnesses.

“What an idiot,” my mother had said more than once after his sentencing. “He couldn’t find his ass with both hands.”