Chapter 51

Lisa helps herself to a sliver of batter-fried chicken and dunks one end in each sauce as if to test Samir’s hypothesis. She came to Iowa for college and stayed to marry her now-ex-husband. She grew up in Central Florida, but prefers the change of seasons—and the fifteen hundred miles between herself and her mother, who calls twice a month to slide Lisa’s personal life under a microscope and offer “advice” in the form of a litany of comparisons to Lisa’s super-mom sister.

“So you can’t wait for Christmas,” Samir supposes.

Lisa rolls her eyes. “I have to go. I haven’t been back to Florida in four years. Last year the guilt was almost worse than the trip would have been. She sent out cards with a photo of her and my sister and my nephews wearing Santa hats at some gator farm, then wrote on the back, I’m sorry you couldn’t be in the photo, but we understand you’re too busy for Christmas. Jesus wept, she wrote. John 11:35. Now we know why.”