My parents said coldly,
“Your kids aren’t important enough for Christmas gifts.”
My sister smirked.
“Why waste anything on those little bastards?”
My kids’ eyes welled up. I stood, pulled out my phone, and said something that froze the entire room. The Christmas lights on my parents’ house twinkled mockingly as I pulled into the driveway. My daughters, Emma and Lily, were bouncing in their car seats with excitement. This was supposed to be their first real Christmas with the extended family since the divorce. At eight and five years old, they had weathered so much already. I wanted this to be perfect for them. My ex-husband, Trevor, had left us three years ago for his twenty-three-year-old assistant. The divorce had been brutal, but I clawed my way back to stability. Working as a software engineer at a major tech company, I had managed to buy us a modest house in a good school district. The settlement hadn’t been generous, but we were making it work. My daughters were resilient, bright, and the center of my universe. I’d grown up in this house with my younger sister, Valerie. She’d always been the golden child, the one who could do no wrong. When she married Justin Park, a corporate lawyer from a wealthy family, my parents acted like she’d won the lottery. Their wedding had cost more than my first year of college tuition. Meanwhile, when I’d married Trevor, a middle school teacher, my father had made snide comments about my modest aspirations.
The front door swung open before we reached it. My mother, Patricia, stood there in a designer sweater, her smile tight and practiced. She hugged me briefly, her perfume overwhelming, then barely glanced at the girls.
“Come in, come in, Kate. Valerie and Justin are here with the boys.”
My nephews, Chase and Braden, were ten and seven. I heard them shrieking in the living room, presumably tearing through presents. The house smelled like pine and cinnamon, picture-perfect as always. My father, Robert, sat in his leather armchair, nursing a scotch despite it being only two in the afternoon.
“Hey, Dad.”
I guided my daughters into the room. He nodded vaguely in my direction.
“Traffic okay?”
Before I could answer, Valerie swept in from the kitchen carrying a tray of cookies. She looked immaculate as always, her highlighted hair perfectly styled, her cashmere dress fitting like it had been tailored yesterday, which it probably had been.
“Oh, you made it.”
Her tone suggested this was somehow surprising.
“Girls, go play with your cousins.”
Emma and Lily approached the boys tentatively. Chase looked up from his new gaming console and sneered.
“We’re busy. Go away.”
“Chase, be nice,”
Valerie said absently, not even looking at him.
The afternoon dragged on with forced small talk. Justin dominated the conversation with stories about his latest cases, each one designed to showcase how successful and important he was. My mother hung on every word. I tried to engage Emma and Lily in decorating cookies, but Valerie kept interrupting with passive-aggressive comments about sugar intake and childhood obesity. When dinner was served, the seating arrangement spoke volumes. Valerie and her family sat at one end of the table with my parents, while my daughters and I were relegated to the other end, almost like we were at a separate table entirely. The roast was dry, the conversation stilted. Emma kept trying to tell my mother about her school play, but Patricia would glance at her phone or ask Justin another question before Emma could finish. After dinner, my father stood and cleared his throat.
“Present time.”
The living room erupted in chaos as Chase and Braden tore into an avalanche of gifts. A new bicycle for Chase, the latest video-game system, designer clothes, sports equipment, gift cards totaling what looked like several hundred dollars. My parents beamed as each present was opened, documenting everything with their phones. Emma and Lily sat on the couch watching with wide eyes. They had brought small handmade gifts for everyone, cards they had decorated themselves. Those gifts sat ignored on the side table. The pile of presents dwindled, and then it was gone. Emma’s hand crept into mine.
“Mom, is it our turn?”
