Page 56 of Thin Ice

I played three more hands. Won none of them. Maddie won two and was ruthless about it, slapping her cards down and announcing "Rummy!" loud enough that Uncle Russ looked over from the couch. Grandma won the third and said nothing, which was worse.

From the kitchen, I could hear Linda and Liam at the sink. The water running. The quiet clink of plates being stacked in the drying rack. And then Linda's voice, low, not meant to carry past the kitchen doorway.

"He fits."

Two words. I don't think she knew I had heard. I kept my eyes on my cards, and my chest went tight in a good way.

I fit.

"Alright." Linda clapped her hands once from the kitchen doorway, dish towel over her shoulder, the general addressing her troops. "Dirty Santa. Everyone in the living room. Russ, turn that off."

"It's the fourth quarter—" Russ said from the couch, the remote in his fist.

"Russell," Grandma said from the table, not looking up.

He turned it off.

"What's Dirty Santa?" I said to Liam, who'd come out of the kitchen drying his hands on his jeans.

"You'll see," he said. He smiled.

The living room rearranged. Folding chairs pulled in from the dining table. The couch pushed back against the wall. Everyone in a rough circle around the coffee table, which now held a pile of wrapped gifts in the middle, each one tagged with a number. The wrapping was newspaper, grocery bags, one in the Sunday comics. The crooked tree blinked behind us.

"Rules," Linda said, standing in the center, and Russ groaned from the couch. "Same as every year. Draw a number. Go in order. Pick from the pile or steal from someone who already opened. Three steals max per gift. If I see anyone fighting over the good candle again, I'm ending it." She pointed at Russ. "I'm looking at you."

"That candle was rightfully mine," Russ said, crossing his arms.

"It was a fifteen-dollar candle and you tackled your own mother," Linda said.

"I reached across her," Russ said.

"You knocked her glasses off."

"Her glasses were loose."

"My glasses were not loose," Grandma said from her chair by the window, where she sat with the authority of a woman who had presided over this argument for too long.

"NUMBERS," Linda said, holding up a hat full of folded paper strips.

When she got to us on the couch, I said "I didn't bring a gift."

She smiled down at me. "Don't worry. I wrapped something from last year for you."

Liam was about to say something.

"You too, Liam," she said.

We both said "thanks" at the same time.

I drew seven. Liam got three. Maddie got one and threw herself back against the couch cushions in fury.

I leaned into Liam and grabbed his leg. "Your mom is the best," I whispered.

The gifts were small. Nobody had spent over twenty dollars on anything in the pile, and the wrapping alone would have given my father a stroke.

Maddie went first. She got off the couch and picked the biggest package. Ripped it open on the floor. A bag of charcoal for grilling.

"Who bought this?!" she shrieked, holding it up.