I set down my champagne glass and smiled politely while my cousin Derek continued his monologue about his latest promotion at the tech firm.
Christmas Eve at my parents’ house in suburban Chicago had become an annual reminder of why I had moved to New York five years ago. The house looked exactly the way it always did in December. A tall tree beside the front window covered in gold ornaments and family keepsakes. Garland wound around the staircase. Candles on the mantel. Outside, the neighborhood lawns were dusted with snow and the porch lights glowed in tidy rows.
Inside, everything looked warm.
That was the strange part. Warm room, cold conversation.
“Emma, sweetheart,” my aunt Linda said, in the voice she used for concern that was not actually concern, “are you still working at that Italian place?”
“I work in restaurants, yes,” I said.
“How nice,” my mother said, in a tone that suggested the opposite. “Though I do wish you’d consider something more stable. Your sister Jennifer just made junior partner at her accounting firm.”
Jennifer raised her wine glass from across the room.
“Five years of hard work, but totally worth it. The salary is incredible.”
“That is what real ambition looks like,” my father said, gesturing toward Jennifer with obvious pride. “Strategic planning. Upward mobility.”
Derek leaned back and regarded me with barely concealed pity.
“Emma, how long have you been waiting tables?”
“For years,” I said.
“Five?”
“Five years in the restaurant industry,” I said gently.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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