It would be a normal Christmas dinner, except for where it takes place: a large, windowless, concrete and metal room, with walls lined primarily with crosses, shelves of canned goods, and about seventy different firearms, from assault rifles to handguns, and one battered upright piano. There’s no door on the wall, just a metal ladder bolted to a hatch in the ceiling. A stove pipes steam up through a chimney to keep the room from becoming airless, where a mother and a young Dan are preparing a meal while six other children alternate between playing and watching Dan’s father demonstrate to them how to dismantle and clean a shotgun.

The children – all younger than Dan except for one girl, who looks about the same age, fifteen or sixteen, and is playing a beautiful rendition of “O Holy Night” on the piano – are wearing clothes that have clearly gone through cycles of being hand-me-downs, with patches and hems done and undone and indelible grass and dirt stains on the knees, and all seem happy until one of the boys takes a sheet of paper that one of his sisters is drawing on, and a scuffle starts.

“Danny, honey, can you go break them up? Kitty and your dad are busy.” Dan’s mom plants a kiss on his forehead and shoos him to do sibling duty, which he manages with his trademark patience. In short order, the children are calm again and the meal – a cooked rabbit, a side of soup, some potatoes, and some sort of flatbread smeared with copious amounts of jam and sugar – is on the table.

“Your turn to say grace, Danny,” his father says, and they all link hands.

Dan starts. “The eyes of all wait upon Thee, O Lord, and Thou givest them their meat in due season; Thou openest Thine hand and satisfied the desire of every living thing. Our Father... Lord God, Heavenly Father, bless us and these Thy gifts which we receive from Thy bountiful goodness, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."

“Amen,” says the family.