I stood on my mother’s porch, gripping a velvet box that held a gold lily pendant I’d spent weeks choosing. Through the door, I could hear laughter—the kind that didn’t include me yet. At thirty-six, you’d think I’d have perfected the smile by now.
The one that said I’m fine even when I wasn’t.
The one that photographed well enough to prove I belonged. The door flew open.
Tyler, my fourteen-year-old nephew, filled the doorway in his designer hoodie and expensive sneakers—the ones I knew were paid for with money that wasn’t really his father’s. “Oh,” he said flatly.
“You came.”
Inside, the house smelled like store-bought frosting and teenage cologne.
My mother sat at the head of the dining table, hands clasped around her wine glass, beaming at Tyler like he’d invented sunlight. “His teacher said he might be gifted,” Mom was telling her friend Irene. “Not just smart—gifted.
She said you don’t see kids like him every year, maybe every five.”
“Wow,” Irene tittered.
“A genius in the family.”
“Inherited from his grandmother,” Mom said, touching her chest. They both laughed.
I cleared my throat. “Hi, Mom.”
She glanced over, surprised, like I’d materialized from thin air instead of walking through the front door.
“Oh, Stephanie.
You made it.”
I crossed the room and kissed her cheek, breathing in the floral perfume she’d worn my entire childhood. “Of course. It’s your birthday.”
She patted my arm the way you might pat a delivery person who arrived late but at least showed up.
“Put that somewhere.
We’re about to do presents.”
That was a lie. The table was already littered with torn wrapping paper and opened boxes.
I set my gift bag on the sideboard next to two store-bought cakes. The necklace in its velvet box suddenly looked small and ridiculous between the sugar mountains.
My brother Mike appeared with a beer, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, cheeks already flushed.
“You look tired,” he said, the words landing somewhere between teasing and insult. “Store keeping you up nights?”
He steered me toward a chair squeezed between two strangers. “No seats left, but we made space for you.
Didn’t we, Mom?”
Mom smiled vaguely.
“We always make space for family.”
So long as they’re convenient, I thought. The woman beside me swapped her dropped fork with mine without asking.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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