“My family will be happy,” he says. “We’ll just tell everyone the truth: we fell in love, and now we’re pregnant.”

She cries harder, and Kevin climbs into the passenger side and pulls her into his lap.

A baby, he thinks.

He strokes her hair, and his heart soars. “We’ll keep living at the inn,” he says. “Just until we get on our feet. Maybe Dad will let us take the family suite on the third floor.”

“But what if I get sent back?” Isabelle says. “It is always a danger! And now that I am…”

“It’s okay,” Kevin says. “That’s not going to happen. I’ll make sure of it.”

“How?” Isabelle says.

He wants to say it. He nearly says it.

But.

MARGARET

Christmas Eve morning, she receives a text from Drake: All in.

A wave of relief, followed by excitement. Margaret had been steeling herself for a cancellation from him; she always likes to keep her expectations low to avoid disappointment—but Hawaii will be far superior with Drake along.

Buoyed by this good news, she packs four bikinis, two cover-ups, five sundresses, her straw hat, a copy of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, which she’s been meaning to read for months—and then, because it is Christmas, she carefully packs the paper angel that Ava made in second-grade Sunday school, back when Christmas was Christmas, back when Margaret was a mother instead of a national icon.

She calls Kelley and gets his voice mail. Then she calls Ava and gets her voice mail. The only people in America who don’t take Margaret Quinn’s calls are her own family. She thinks about calling the inn, but for some reason this intimidates her—probably because every other time she’s called that number, Mitzi has answered, and, as is to be expected, Mitzi does not appreciate hearing Margaret Quinn’s famous voice on the other end of the line. Now, though, Mitzi is gone (can this be true, really?), but even so, Margaret won’t call the inn. It’s Christmas Eve, and Kelley must be running at capacity, plus throwing that enormous party. If anyone needs Margaret, she supposes they will call.

After she packs, she brews an espresso and sits down at her computer. There are twelve more soldiers dead in Afghanistan. There is some kind of backlash or new order taking action; the U.S. has lost more soldiers in one week than we have since 2004. Margaret’s heart clenches as she scans the list. Not Bart.

How do Kelley and Mitzi live like this?

She calls Kelley again, and again gets his voice mail.

PATRICK

In the morning, he is awakened by a pounding on the front door. His head feels like a crumbling plaster cast of a head. It is both heavy and empty, filled with rocks and something that sloshes like liquid. The bottle of vodka has rolled under the coffee table; the pills are lined up on the glass surface. Ten pills left, which means he took only three. His stomach squelches; whoever is at the door is insistent.

It’s federal marshals, he thinks. He won’t answer, he won’t confess, he won’t surrender. He won’t leave the house; they’ll have to storm him like a SWAT team if they want to get him. He is grateful now that Jen decided to leave with the kids; she wouldn’t take this well at all—a stranger on the front step, pounding on their door, attracting the attention of the neighbors.

And yet, he misses Jen. He needs her. If she were here, she would go to the door and tell whoever it is to GO AWAY. She can be formidable; Patrick can’t imagine anyone intimidating her. Also, Patrick misses the kids—the shooting and helicopter noises of their video games, their screaming and yelling and fighting, their sweet, funky boy smell of sweat and grass and pancake syrup.

Still, the knocking.

Patrick thinks about standing up the way some people think about climbing Mount Everest. Can it be done? He moves his legs to the floor; that much goes okay. The more difficult task is raising his head and torso. Ohhhhhkay. He gets to his feet and hobbles over to the picture window.

At the front door is a man in uniform. Patrick hides behind the Christmas tree and thinks: I’m going to jail.

The man keeps knocking. He has no intention of going away; Patrick can’t escape his fate. Patrick descends the stairs and says, “Who is it?”

“Blahblahblah office,” the man says.

Patrick cracks the door, aware that he is still wearing his suit from the day before—minus his tie, his jacket, and his shoes.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“Patrick Quinn?”

Patrick nods. The man is about fifty-five, plump, and silver haired. Patrick can take him in a fight, he thinks.

The man starts handing Patrick boxes. Patrick is confused. The man is wearing a uniform, vaguely militaristic, but the packages he’s giving Patrick seem like regular packages. Patrick tries to focus on the labels—he really needs his glasses, he’s so dreadfully hungover—but he makes out CBS Studios, and the relief he feels nearly causes him to levitate.

United States Postal Service. These are Christmas gifts, sent to the kids from Margaret. Every year Margaret has her assistant, Darcy, order gifts using some incredible service that always selects the perfect gift for each boy.

“And this,” the postal worker says, “requires a signature.” He hands Patrick a small cube of a box with luxurious weight. It’s caviar from Petrossian, his mother’s gift each year to him and Jen. Normally, they eat it on New Year’s Eve.

Patrick scribbles his name on the clipboard. He wants to kiss the mailman.

“Thank you!” he shouts. His voice is so loud that the mailman’s head snaps back. His voice is so loud, it echoes across the Common.

The mailman retreats down the steps, and Patrick moves all the packages inside and carries the box with the caviar up to the kitchen. He hopes they have eggs. He is going to scramble them all and dump the caviar on top. It will be his breakfast, and Jen’s punishment for leaving.

His cell phone rings, but Patrick ignores it. That will be Jen, he is certain. But she’s the one who left with his kids two days before Christmas, so let her wonder.

Then the house phone rings. Definitely Jen. Patrick finds eight eggs in the fridge and cracks them all in a stainless steel bowl, trying not to dwell on how the sound of the eggs cracking mimics the pain in his head. He adds cream, and salt and pepper; he butters a frying pan. How many times this year has he actually cooked in this kitchen? He can’t remember any. Jen does the cooking, and she does it perfectly. Everything she makes is fresh and seasonal. She practically reads his mind. On nights he wants roast chicken with her buttery mashed potatoes, there’s roast chicken. On nights he wants Cobb salad with grilled lobster, there it is. They have cheese fondue on Valentine’s Day, beef and broccoli stir-fry for the Chinese New Year. He misses Jen! He wonders if something bad will happen if he eats the caviar on the wrong day. Well, something bad has already happened, which is why he’s doing this.