My mother, a woman distinguished during the holidays by a kind of ornate weariness, who deflects all praise of her heroic courage in the face of overwhelming adversity, floats into and out of the dining room via a knobless swinging door, literally floats, hovering three inches or so above the floor in nonstop motion. Her numerous entrances and exits seem arbitrary to the untrained eye. She leans slightly forward when coming in and going out, like the robot maid on The Jetsons. This floating, heroic, suffering woman doesn't physically resemble my mother but I know it's her because I recognize the sigh. In the living room, on a discounted floor model Levitz colonial sofa whose cushions are both flipped to hide large ancient stains, my stepfather watches the game, his expression suggesting that his mood could slip easily into familiar rage or embarrassing jocularity. (Watching that irascible man try to josh around is as awkward and uncomfortably intimate as catching him masturbating would be. Would be.) No one knows what might set him off, in either direction (which are basically, in the end, the same direction), so we give him a wide berth, hugging the wall behind him in an attempt to cross the room without drawing his attention, and well clear of the potential blast radius.

The rooms upstairs are uncomfortably warm, the phone rings constantly, the normally subdued feeling of menace that permeates the house enshrouds objects like a fog, imbuing everyday banalities with a thrilling aura of potential catastrophe. Behind locked bedroom doors, similar but individually entertained fantasies suggest that someone is going to end up sitting on the curb at midnight with a blanket around their shoulders and spinning lights reflected in their eyes, answering questions posed by a man with meaty fingers and maybe a clipboard. And people say the suburbs are boring.

In the basement, on Christmas morning no less, beneath a loose pile of household debris, the seed pod bursts. A sinister dehiscing. Seed pod?