Chapter 5

The morning came gray and cold. Snow had fallen overnight, piling against the windowsills, blanketing the neighborhood in silent white. Christmas morning.

I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of June's delighted squeal from the living room. I padded down the hall, still in the grey knit sweater and jeans I'd worn to dinner, and found Eli kneeling on the floor with June in his lap while she examined a stack of wrapped presents with suspicious, wide-eyed wonder.

"Merry Christmas," Eli said.

"Merry Christmas." I sat on the floor beside them, reaching over to tickle June's stomach. She shrieked with pleasure, grabbing at my fingers.

The morning was slow and sweet — wrapping paper torn by uncoordinated hands, coos and giggles, Eli's face soft in the light of the tree, the way he looked at June like he was memorizing her. I let myself sink into it, the warmth, the quiet, the perfect bubble of our small family.

The bubble lasted until noon.

I saw the text first — a long string of messages from my mother, sent in quick succession. I read them over June's head, my face going still.

"Eli," I said.

He looked up from the floor, his expression shifting when he saw my face. "What is it?"

"Mom's texted three times." I read through the messages. "'Petra is devastated.' 'She says you don't trust her with your own niece.' 'Can you please call me before you make this worse?'"

Eli set down the toy in his hand. "Did she say anything else?"

"'She stayed up all night crying. She says Eli always hated her.'" I looked up. "That's not true, is it? You never hated her—"

"I don't hate her," Eli said. "I don't like what she does. There's a difference."

I looked back at the phone. Another message had come in — not from my mother this time, but from Petra directly.

"Nora, I need to talk to you privately. This is between sisters. Eli can't dictate how our family works."

I set the phone down on the couch between us.

"Don't," I said, mostly to myself. "Don't let her pull you back in."

"Pull you back in?" Eli's voice was careful.

"She's going to try to make this about me and her," I said. "About family, about loyalty, about how you're trying to control me. She's going to find a way to make me the bad guy for standing with my own husband." I looked at him. "She's done it before. Every time I've ever sided with someone over her, she's made it about how I don't love her enough."

Eli was quiet. June reached for a ribbon, her chubby fingers grabbing for the bright red bow.

"Did you ever side with someone over her?" he asked gently.

I thought about it. Thirty-four years of family dinners, of quiet compromises, of watching my sister say the worst thing in the room and everyone pretending it was fine. I thought about the time Petra told my cousin Sarah — the one with the eating disorder — that she was looking "healthy, you know, like, fuller." I thought about the time she laughed when my father got laid off and said maybe it was a blessing since he "wasn't getting any younger."