The fork was halfway to my mouth, piercing a perfectly seasoned piece of Christmas turkey, when my mother delivered the sentence that would change everything between us.
“You need to move out.”
I set the fork down carefully on my plate, the crystal clinking against porcelain in the sudden silence. The Motown Christmas playlist I’d paid for continued humming from the Bluetooth speakers I’d bought, Marvin Gaye crooning about mercy and peace while my family prepared to throw me into the street.
“Excuse me?” I said, my voice level despite the surge of disbelief coursing through me.
At the head of the table sat my mother, Bernice, gripping the electric carving knife I’d given her for her sixtieth birthday last year. To her right, my younger sister Ebony practically glowed with smug satisfaction, her manicured fingers—French tips I’d paid for at her favorite salon—wrapped around a wine glass filled with the Cabernet Sauvignon I’d selected and purchased. Next to her lounged Brad, her husband of two years, the kind of man who wore designer sunglasses indoors and threw around words like “synergy” and “disruption” despite being unemployed for the entirety of their marriage.
Brad picked up his fork and tapped it deliberately against his crystal wine glass—my crystal wine glass, from the set I’d bought to replace the chipped ones from Goodwill.
Clink, clink, clink.
The sound cut through the music, through the smell of turkey and sweet potato casserole, through the illusion of family warmth I’d been desperately maintaining for years.
“Attention, everyone,” Brad announced, leaning back in his chair like he was addressing a boardroom instead of a dining table with four people. “Bernice has an important announcement to make.”
I looked up from my plate, my eyes finding my mother’s face. She was staring at the wall behind me, at the framed family photo from five years ago when Dad was still alive, when Ebony was still in college, when I still believed that supporting your family meant they’d eventually support you back.
“Tiana,” my mother said, her voice steady and rehearsed, like she’d been practicing this speech in the mirror, “you need to move out. Pack your things and leave. Tonight is your last night here.”
The words hung in the air like smoke from a fire I hadn’t seen coming. Around us, the house hummed with the white noise of comfortable living—the furnace I’d paid to replace last winter, the refrigerator I’d upgraded three months ago, the ceiling fan that circulated air through a home I’d been financing for five years.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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