My mother called me on December 23rd while I stood in the frozen-food aisle at Kroger, holding a bag of peas and debating whether I could afford an actual dessert for Christmas Eve. “Don’t make a huge thing out of Christmas this year, Emily,” she said. “Your father’s exhausted.
We’re keeping it tiny. Just me, him, your brother, and Aunt Carol. Close family only.”
Close family.
I swallowed every response trying to rise up my throat.
I had covered my parents’ electric bill twice that fall. I had put my father’s truck insurance on my credit card during one of his “temporary setbacks.” I had even let my younger brother Mason stay on my streaming services and phone plan because he claimed he was between jobs.
So I bought a small ham, a cheap bottle of wine, and a pie I ended up eating alone in my apartment on Christmas night while old movies played quietly enough for me to hear the radiator clanking beside the wall.
The next morning, I woke up to a tag notification.
My cousin Jessica had posted photos from my parents’ house.
Not four people.
Thirty-eight.
Folding tables stretched through the living room. There were catered trays, balloons, matching Christmas sweaters, children tearing open presents beneath the tree I had helped my mother decorate the weekend before.
Mason stood grinning with a beer in his hand. My father carved prime rib at the kitchen counter.
And then I saw him.
Ryan.
My ex-fiancé.
Standing beside my mother in the navy sweater I bought him two Christmases earlier.
The caption read: “Nothing better than real family at Christmas.”
I stared at the screen until my hands felt numb.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text from Mason: “Hey, Netflix isn’t working.”
One minute later: “Also my phone says payment issue?”
My parents’ utility account was still attached to my email because I had set it up during one of their emergencies. Their autopay was linked to my debit card.
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