By the time she drags him out to the living room, I’ve got Christmas music playing on the speakers, and I’ve set the table with some of Blix’s finest silver and some plates that have poinsettias painted on them. The house smells deliciously like cinnamon and butter.

If a stranger were to peek in the window and see us all there—our nodding, smiling faces, our twinkly lights, the stockings hanging on the mantel—they’d surely think we were a lovely family about to embark on a fabulous new year together.

But nothing is as it seems. And I worry that this might very well be my last Christmas with both Patrick and Fritzie—and my last Christmas having a child to dazzle—and I want to make this something Fritzie will talk about for the rest of her life.

She opens the presents that I bought for her from Patrick and me: a video game she wanted, and a box of art supplies, a light saber, and a giant stuffed sloth, which she says will be best friends with Mister Swoony. Tessa has sent her a big intriguing box that we’ve been wondering about all week.

Inside are two identical satiny dresses—one bright blue and one red, with lace and sashes and a sweetheart collar and covered buttons down the front.

I hold my breath as Fritzie lifts them out of the box and then puts them right back. “These can go right to the thrift shop,” she says.

“They’re very . . . girlish,” says my mother.

“Not the kind of girlish I am,” says Fritzie. Which is of course true. “I could make them into hats maybe.”

Tessa calls the house in the afternoon after we are all bleary-eyed and are contemplating naps, and Fritzie talks to her very politely and in monosyllables. It is chilling to listen to, actually, how disconnected Fritzie is from anything I can hear Tessa saying. After the call is over, she goes and sits on the couch and leans against my mother for a long time, and my mother puts her arm around her and offers to watch It’s a Wonderful Life with her. I have to take Mom into the kitchen and remind her that that’s a movie about a guy who wants to kill himself, and maybe it’s not the best for today, not for an eight-year-old. And not for a man who’s wrestling with his love for a dead woman either, I think to myself. Although Patrick has somehow been reabsorbed back into his studio and probably wouldn’t come out to watch anything anyway.

“Okay, then, Love Actually,” says my mother when she’s back in the living room, and so then I take her back to the kitchen and remind her of certain elements she might have overlooked in that film, too: for instance, the couple simulating sex in the highest-production porn movie ever and the unfaithful husband and the brother suffering from psychosis.

“You’re right, you’re right,” says my mom. “Why is it that all I remember is Hugh Grant dancing?”

This Christmas, I think, is really a big fat hoax after all. A stunning amount of work—and for what? Simply to hide the heartbreak that all four of us are feeling. I feel like I’ve been pushing it away so hard, and yet of course it’s sitting right there in the center of my head, like a flashing red light: THIS CHRISTMAS IS A DISASTER.

In the late afternoon, when all the Christmas requirements have been ticked off, and when I am spent and bedraggled from all the effort, I stomp over to the music player and turn off the holiday carols and put on the music I love—the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen. Marvin Gaye. Lady Gaga. The Supremes. My mother yells out that she wants some Frank Sinatra. We put it all on. And we turn up the volume as loudly as we can, and we turn down all the lights except for the bright-colored ones on the Christmas tree, and we dance and sing at the top of our lungs. Fritzie jumps on the couch because that’s what she loves more than anything. Bedford barks and runs back and forth. My mother does dances from her teenage years, which include the jerk, the twist, the boogaloo, and some other crazy stuff, like the mashed potato. I can do the Charleston and the Texas two-step. We all fail magnificently at doing the Floss.

At one point my mother is twirling me around in a circle when I feel her move away, and when I turn back, Patrick has taken her place. He pulls me to him, and my head is against his chest. I hear his heart beating and feel his chest moving up and down, hear the bass of his voice as he sings along to Diana Ross’s “You Can’t Hurry Love,” which is about everything I don’t believe in. I think you have to hurry love because otherwise it can flit away so easily.

I’ve been holding myself together throughout this whole day, trying to make it festive for Fritzie and my mom, and now I’m so surprised to feel his body next to mine that I almost can’t breathe for a moment. I feel like I’m melting into the soft familiarity of him.

And I close my eyes and thank whoever or whatever is out there that makes things happen. Sometimes you need a Christmas miracle, and you can already tell it’s not going to come from the usual places, like candles and Christmas carols. Those all had their chance. Sometimes the Christmas miracle has to ride in on the notes of a Motown song and the Texas two-step. Dancing, I think, is almost always a good idea.

But then the song ends, and he lets me go, and when I see his eyes again, it’s as though he’s pulled himself away once more. But, hey, at least he tried.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

PATRICK

Eight o’clock in the morning the day after New Year’s, Patrick’s phone rings. The buzzing of his cell phone yanks him out of a sound sleep. He’d been up until three, pacing and making art. Maybe it was four. Wait. No. He remembers seeing the clock say 4:20 in its huge red numerals. He can’t remember all that well, frankly. Things are fuzzy and there might be mushrooms growing in his brain. Or maybe he painted mushrooms. He’ll have to look.

It’s Philip Pierpont. The double-edged sword that is Philip Pierpont.

This time it’s the annoyingly celebratory Philip Pierpont bellowing into the phone, “Patrick! Patrick, my friend! The story is out and it’s sensational. Could not have nailed this better! This is going to bring people in!” (Which does not make Patrick feel any better, for some reason. He doubts if he and Pierpont would agree on what a good story would be.)

And then there is the next prong of Philip Pierpont, lying in wait for him. His voice changes, signifying that he has a big question. So! How many paintings, exactly, was he showing? How many are ready, and when can they be packed up and brought over?

Patrick has no idea how many paintings. He doesn’t even know how many he can bear to show of the ones that are finished. Or supposedly finished. Not to mention the ones he thinks he will finish before the show, which he believes is not for another few weeks. January 18, is he not right?

Correct, says Pierpont in a funny voice. “But I need numbers for wall space. You’ve done shows before, my artistically complicated friend. You know this.”

He goes on talking and talking, and Patrick is forced to realize that Pierpont would like things quantified to a point that Patrick is not comfortable with. What if he says ten paintings? Is that too many? No, probably too few.

And now Philip Pierpont, as if he’s on purpose aiming to hit all the low points, careens into Point Number Three. Opening night! There will be cheese and wine, of course, and possibly some crudités. Some more members of the press possibly coming . . . invitations sent out . . . Would Patrick agree to make a few remarks? To give a brief overview of the work? Which of course speaks for itself, but the crowd always likes a little something from the artist. An acknowledgment of the attendance perhaps. Of the honor of the thing. Gallery space.