When Yasmin and I pull up to my house, there’s an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway: an all-black Mercedes in a neighborhood that consists of mostly used cars with hundreds of thousands of miles on them. It stands out like a Great Pyrenees at a kitty daycare.

“Your Christmas present?” Yasmin suggests as she pulls up to let me out. I may be an optimistic person, but even I know that’s totally out of the question.

“Yeah, right.” I shake my head.

“Maybe your dad won big?”

An unsettling feeling swims through my stomach. This car is out of place here, and everything in me is telling me it’s...