A fake Christmas tree decorated with glittering silver snowflakes and green lights now stood in Lake End's entrance hall, thanks to Ellie and Lana's joint efforts. Thanksgiving break had ended, which meant the Giving Tree Program had begun, and the two women had come to school at six o'clock in the morning to deck the halls. Their volunteer duties had only just begun.

Now that the school day had ended, Ellie and Lana occupied the school's front office. It seemed like most of the school's staff had gone home and the two of them were the only ones there. Clay had picked up Avery and Talia from school, so Ellie had no child-watching duties for the evening. Instead she had Giving Tree duties, and she felt glad she wouldn't see Dylan, who she hadn't spoken to since the day after Thanksgiving, when he'd mumbled a grumpy thank you to her for watching Talia after his drunken exit. The word "sorry" might have been sandwiched somewhere in the thank you, but it should have been louder.

On the main desk sat a binder full of the names of students whose families had come forth to say they were in need this Christmas. Most of these families lived beyond the Lake End district. Ellie and Lana's job was to create separate tags for each Christmas gift wish, and to put numbers on them that corresponded to the numbers assigned to each family. They would place the anonymous tags on the Christmas tree in the entrance hall so that people who were willing and able to give could take a tag, purchase the gift listed on the tag, and place the gift under the Giving Tree for the family in need to pick up.

Reading through each family's Christmas wish depressed Ellie. Some families asked for basic stuff: underwear or socks for their children, gift cards to the grocery store, help with rent. Others asked for help with gifts for their children: books, toys, crafts. 

Part of Ellie wanted to help them all, to give them all the rent money she could, to make sure their children were clothed and fed properly. But part of her also highly suspected that many of the families who had come in to sign up for the program had bad habits and addiction problems that contributed to their financial problems, and that part of her wanted to scold them and tell them to get their lives figured out on their own, not to enable them to continue their addictions by paying a portion of their rent. The first part of her thought the other part of her was a bitch. She recalled how poor Dylan had been for the past few years, and how small offers of kindness had really helped him. But she also recalled how Dylan had refused to quit smoking cigarettes even though that would've saved him around thirty dollars a month. He'd always told her that some people needed a spoonful of sugar to help life's medicine go down, and she'd once responded that people should be able to avoid certain sugars entirely, especially when they couldn't afford them in the first place. "Sounds easy for someone who doesn't have to work and who sleeps on a comfortable mattress and eats good food every day," he'd said back. "But you go on and drink your wine; you 'deserve' it." That had shut her up, though she still harbored the private thought that Dylan created some of his own misery.

As Ellie continued to read through the Giving Tree wishes, and to input them into a spreadsheet they would use to print out tags, she noticed that one of the wishes, listed next to Leah's and Trigger's names, was "the new foam dart Nerf gun."

Impulsively, she showed Lana. "Look at this."

Lana peered over. "Are you kidding me? The last thing that little boy needs is a gun."

Ellie didn't know what came over her, but she said, "Well, let's make sure he doesn't get one." Then, she typed, "Books about love that will appeal to a Kindergartner" for Trigger's anonymous tag. Still looking over her shoulder, Lana laughed, and Ellie shrugged. "What? I made a transcription error, that's all."

"Oh, Ellie, you are so terrible. I just love it."

Ellie knew she was acting just like Lana, like a true bitch. She was finally beginning to come to terms with having Leah in her life, yet the fact that Leah had actually requested a gun for Trigger now counted against Ellie's respect for her, making her wonder, once more, why the fuck Dylan wanted her in his life.

Maybe Ellie's transcription error, her subtle act of manipulation, could count as an act of kindness. If Dylan and Talia were going to keep spending time with Leah and Trigger, then preventing Trigger from getting a toy gun would probably help them.

Yes; Ellie was Dylan's Secret Santa, a gift-giver who offered to help him without him knowing it. It made her want to rub her hands together in a cheerful deviance.

With their duties nearly completed, Lana said, "I have to go pick up my groceries. You could come with me, and we could get coffee after?"

"I should really get home," Ellie said, recalling how terrible it had been to watch Lana berate Leah in the grocery store parking lot the last time. "Clay's already upset that I've been spending so much time away from home."

"Ugh, that's how Dean is. He's probably not even home yet—he would let the sitter watch the kids for days before interacting with them." Lana laughed like this was funny, and Ellie felt suddenly thankful that Clay enjoyed hanging out with Avery. "And don't even talk about cooking—" Lana continued. "He won't do that, either! And he loves making me feel like I'm the bad mother." Lana still smiled here, like this amused her.

"Husbands," Ellie said, which seemed the appropriate response, as Lana laughed again. They said their goodbyes.

After Lana's mention of coffee, Ellie decided to stop by the café on her own. Something about that barista who'd mistaken her for a college student invigorated her sense of self-worth, and she'd continually hoped to see him. It was stupid, she knew, to allow a college barista to make her feel this way. But she couldn't help it.

She stopped by Mountain Springs café, and went inside. Her prayers were answered, as the cute barista stood at the register. "Hi," she stammered. "I'll take a medium decaf latte. With oat milk, please."

"That's the same thing you got last time," he told her, and she almost corrected him to let him know that last time, she hadn't gotten decaf, but she refrained, instead opting to smile; the smile came genuinely, prompted by his remembrance of her.

He made her drink without saying anything else, and she couldn't think of anything else to say without sounding flirtatious or motherly, either. Finally, he handed it to her. "Here you go. That will be four dollars and eighty-seven cents."

"Thank you," she said, handing him her credit card.

"You're welcome. I hope you have a great day."

When the transaction was complete, She left the café, feeling a bit deflated. It should have made her happy that he'd remembered the drink she'd ordered, but she'd gone in there expecting more. What had she really expected, though? Had she wanted the barista to ask her out? He knew she was married. She briefly fantasized about telling him her husband was cheating on her; the barista looked like someone good at consoling those in distress.

But she knew girls getting their degrees without any kids to hamper their career paths likely surrounded the barista every day. She said a sad goodbye to him as she got in the car and buckled her seatbelt, deciding she would avoid Mountain Springs café from then on if she could.

Her phone started ringing, and she saw her old friend's name.

"Michelle," she said ecstatically. "It's good to hear your voice."

"Hey, girlie. How are you? How's Dylan's dad?"

"Can you please call him by his name?"

"Get your panties out of a bunch, Ellie. How's Clay?"

"He's fine," said Ellie; she hated talking to Michelle about Clay, because Michelle would talk to her about him the same way she'd always talked about him, like he was a DILF Ellie had scored.

"I talked to Dylan the other day," Michelle said.

"What? You two still talk?"

"I know, right? I drunk dialed him, and he answered. He told me you're a huge bore, that you hang out with all these insufferable mommies."

"Oh, they're not that bad."

"Oh really? What do you do together?"

"We volunteer for the school, and do yoga."

"Sounds pretty insufferable."

"Okay, maybe they can be insufferable," Ellie admitted. "Like, get this: the other day, I went with one of the moms to pick up groceries, and when the grocery store didn't have farro, she was all, 'Can't you get me another ancient grain?'" Ellie found herself laughing, because she thought it was funny: comedy-silver funny. But Michelle didn't laugh.

"Ellie, are you really talking to me about ancient fucking grains? God, Dylan wasn't joking—you are so boring now. I have more important shit I need to talk about. So there's this guy—" Michelle continued to drone on about her latest sexual conquest, about how he ended up being married, and about her ongoing moral conundrum: all the guys she liked sleeping with were married or dicks, and all the guys she actually liked were terrible in the sack.

We can't relate to each other anymore, Ellie thought; she suddenly remembered when she'd crossed the same threshold with Clay.

"So what do you think?" Michelle asked, and Ellie realized she was expected to respond to these unrelatable woes.

"What do I think? No, Michelle, no. You cannot be a homewrecker. Stop sleeping with him. Have some integrity."

Michelle's tone soured. "Since when did you become Saint Ellie?"

"You don't have to be a saint to have a moral compass."

"Alrighty. Well, next time you're feeling less judgmental, call me, and maybe we can, you know, actually talk."

Michelle hung up, and Ellie frowned at the phone. She glanced at the café, realizing she did not feel like a saint; coming here to feed her sense of self-worth had led her astray from her own moral compass.

She turned on her car and started to drive home, feeling more alone than usual, and wondering if another fire could distract her from her latest woes.