After the fake boyfriend left, the guests kept coming. They came every day, with their prayer books and coconut candies, careful not to slip on the driveway—it’s icy—offering cold cheeks for a kiss. My aunts took their coats, their cakes. I went down to take their sorries, then hid in my old room.

Like most people, and especially most people, I hate going to readings. A reading is an empty concert, the improv comedy you see because your boyfriend is in an improv comedy troupe, the phallo-phobic bachelorette party (no strippers, no penis stuff!). No penis stuff?

In the middle of the night on the 15th of December, a small Christmas tree farm was vandalized, and fifty-three Christmas trees had their tops cut off. The vandals left the trees decapitated by the side of the road.