I nodded dumbly and started toward the door, unable to meet his eyes.

My family had been looking for us, their jackets already on as they stood waiting by the front doors. The lobby was mostly emptied at this point, which was a relief. I was in no state to mingle with the merry crowds.

“Where were you guys?” Gracie asked, pulling away from them to hand me my coat. “You left during your favorite part.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I just needed someplace quiet for a few minutes to be alone.”

“But you weren’t alone. Jesse left, too.”

I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment. The tears, the awful things I’d said. I needed to apologize. I needed to tell him about that glimpse of Iris, about how unsteady I was afterward. He would understand.

As we made our way down the steps to the sidewalk, I leaned in, careful not to brush against him as I whispered. “I’m sorry again, about all that. I need to tell you something later. About . . . Iris.”

Before he could answer, a blinding flash came from somewhere in the dark lot in front of us. I jumped, grabbing on to Jesse’s arm to steady myself.

The light flashed again, and this time I saw the person directly behind the flash, the man holding the camera in front of his face. A photographer was there to take a picture of me on Christmas Eve. The new virgin worshipping the old. Too sickeningly appropriate for him to pass up.

Jesse moved to block me from the camera, but the flashes kept coming, faster, closer.

“Leave my daughter alone,” my dad growled. I peeked from behind Jesse’s shoulder to see him approaching the photographer, who was much shorter and smaller than my dad’s solid six-two frame. The man cowered and brought the camera down behind his back, protecting his goods.

“I’m done, I’m done,” he said, taking big steps backward. “I’m leaving now.”

“I want those pictures deleted first.” My dad was matching him step for step, the distance between them shrinking. “Give me your camera.”

“You’re crazy, man. No. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You’re stalking my daughter and taking pictures without her permission. Outside of church on Christmas Eve, damn it. Don’t you have any decency? Any respect?” He was spitting, he was yelling so hard, angry white flecks glistening under the streetlamps.

“I’m just doing my job. I have kids, too, you know. We all have our work to do. You do yours, I do mine.” The man’s voice was louder now, less shaky and intimidated, and he’d stopped moving away.

“I feel sorry for your kids then. I feel sorry that their dad puts food on the table with money he made taking advantage of innocent people’s lives.”

“And I feel sorry for you that you actually believe your daughter is innocent.”

In a hazy blur, my dad hurled his head toward the man like a bull, knocking him flat on his back against the pavement.

“Dad, no!” I screamed as Jesse lurched forward.

“Paul! Paul!” My mom’s pleading shrieks cut through the darkness, and Gracie’s softer, weaker cries followed like an echo.

I stood frozen where I was, too numb to react. They were fighting because of me. I was ruining Christmas. My hands rushed to cover my stomach. My belly looked so big under the padding of the jacket, a ball that seemed too impossibly round to be a part of my actual body.

“Jesus! You’re fucking crazy!” The man screamed as he picked himself up, camera nestled protectively under his arm. Jesse was fighting to keep my dad controlled, tugging his arms back to lock him in place. “You’re just lucky my camera didn’t bash open on the ground, or we’d be going straight to the police station right now, you asshole.”

My dad was seething, but he’d stopped fighting against Jesse’s grip. “You tell the cops. They haven’t done a damn useful thing for my family. They haven’t lifted a finger to stop people like you from intruding in our lives.”

“If you want us to go away, tell your pretty little daughter there to give up the bullshit. If she admits that she had sex, she’s suddenly just like every other stupid knocked-up kid out there. But as long as she gives us a story, we’re not going anywhere.” He spit on the ground, just barely missing my dad’s shiny brown oxfords, before spinning away from us and jogging across the dark lot.

“Merry Christmas, everybody!” he called out over his shoulder, leaving the five of us standing there, silent in his wake.

• • •

Christmas morning was anticlimactic after that—no calls from the cops, thankfully, though we all flinched every time the phone rang. Police, angry zealots, reporters who would stop at nothing to get a holiday feature. There were too many potential land mines lurking behind each ring to risk picking up the phone. Family or friends calling to wish us a merry Christmas could be filtered through the answering machine.

The present opening was somber, except for Gracie, who still squealed over every shiny pink package she tore open. Her big gift—a baby doll that ate, drank, peed, and pooped—seemed a bit young for her, considering that she’d cried last spring when my aunt gave her a doll for her seventh birthday, saying that she was a big girl, too old for dolls anymore. But she’d insisted on this particular doll, plastering wish lists to Santa on the refrigerator, the kitchen table, my parents’ nightstand, the bathroom mirror—anywhere and everywhere to make sure the request couldn’t possibly be overlooked.

“I need practice to be the most perfect aunt ever,” she had said to me when the commercial for the doll played on TV. “I can feed her, hold her, put on diapers—just like I will with your baby, Meen. Our baby.” I hadn’t known if I’d wanted to laugh or cry when she’d said it.

Everything Santa brought me was baby related, too—a few red and yellow unisex footy jumpers, a night sky–themed mobile with a smiling man in the moon and twinkling stars to hang over the crib, and the crowning present, a beautiful bright green stroller with every kind of attachment and compartment that a new, helpless mom could ever possibly need. Gracie proceeded to push around her doll—“Baby Mira for miracle,” she proclaimed—in the stroller for the rest of the afternoon, making tireless laps around the living room and kitchen.

Aunt Vera and Uncle Teddy came over for Christmas dinner with Lucy and Danny—both of whom immediately pounced on Gracie, begging for turns at pushing Baby Mira around. I did my best to look merry and bright with the rest of the adults, hovering around my mom and aunt in the kitchen. But when I saw my phone light up with Jesse’s name, I was thankful for a good reason to excuse myself.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, closing my bedroom door behind me.

“Merry Christmas, Mina.”

“It’s strange, you know, a full day without having you and the camera shadowing me. I’m not used to going unrecorded.”

He laughed on the other end, but I knew him well enough to know that his eyes and his lips didn’t match the sound.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. “About last night—”

“Mina, it’s fine, really. Don’t worry about it. I called because I wanted to ask if you’ve . . . if you’ve checked out the website at all today.”

I hadn’t. A day without Virgin Mina updates was my Christmas present to myself. I hadn’t even felt the urge, not really. Christmas was always that way for me, a day to feel entirely disconnected and removed from the outside world, to soak up every minute with my family, lying around in pajamas eating cinnamon buns and candy canes until we all passed out on the couch, deep in our sugar comas.

“No. I’m afraid to ask.”

“Damn,” he said, sighing. “I knew I probably shouldn’t have said anything until tomorrow. But I was worried that you did see it and were too upset to call, and I didn’t want that to happen either.”

“What does it say, Jesse? Just tell me.” I sat down on the edge of my bed.