Christmas Confessional

“Don’t look at Jeff like that, son. I’ve known what your preferences were for years. Yes, Jeff and Elaine have talked to me about this airline man of yours, but I had to beat it out of them. You were so on edge last year at Christmas, and I made them tell me why you weren’t having as good a Christmas here as usual.”

Dan mumbled something that none of the others could decipher and not even he knew what it was.

“Jeff says his name is Zack. Does he have anywhere to go for Christmas?”

“No,” Dan said after a strangled pause. “No one is left in his family. He’s back at his . . . our apartment in Northern Virginia, I think.”