How It All Goes Down
- Dad loses his job. How many chapters have we begun this way?
- The kids fare a little better this time, because Jeanette has a nice teacher who will buy her lunch, and Maureen has friends whose families feed her.
- Dad is destructive at home, though. He gets drunk and angry and smashes things. The kids have to clean up after him.
- At Christmas, a tree salesman takes pity on the scraggly family and sells them a tree for a dollar.
- But after a Christmas Mass, during which he yells blasphemies in church, Dad goes home and burns the tree down, laughing. Merry Christmas to none.