Chapter 2
### Part 2
My text went to Vivian Slate, my real estate agent, who had once helped a coworker sell a townhouse during a divorce so brutal that even the buyer’s attorney looked nervous.
“Call me first thing tomorrow morning,” I wrote. “I need to discuss selling the condo before New Year’s.”
I stared at the message for one second before hitting send.
Then I slipped the phone face down on my lap and reached for my water glass.
Across the table, Talia was laughing through tears.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I mean, I can, because this is what families do, but still.”
What families do.
The words settled under my skin like splinters.
Mom asked whether the kids wanted hot chocolate before presents. Dad told Brenner he could borrow his truck for “the first load.” Uncle Rich joked that I could sleep in the guest room until I “figured out my next chapter.” Aunt Lorna said maybe this was God’s way of pushing me toward marriage.
Nobody noticed that I had stopped eating.
Nobody noticed because they had never been trained to notice me unless I was useful.
When gifts started, I sat near the fireplace and watched the children tear through wrapping paper. The fire smelled like cedar. A log popped and sent sparks behind the screen. Mom handed me a small box wrapped in silver paper, and I knew before opening it that it would be practical, something she considered appropriate for the daughter who had “everything.”
It was a set of kitchen towels.
Talia received a white envelope.
She gasped when she opened it.
“Brenner, look,” she said.
Inside were gift cards to furniture stores. More than one. Maybe several hundred dollars. Maybe more.
“For the move,” Mom said, squeezing her hands together.
My father glanced at me like he expected me to look touched.
I folded the towels back into the box.
“That’s thoughtful,” I said.
My voice sounded strange to me, like it came from another room.
Later, while Mom packed leftovers into containers, I stepped into the upstairs bathroom and locked the door. It was the same bathroom I had used as a teenager, same seashell soap dish, same frosted window, same faint smell of hairspray and lemon cleaner. I sat on the closed toilet lid and looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked calm.
That almost frightened me.
There should have been tears. There should have been shaking hands. There should have been a furious speech forming behind my teeth. Instead, there was only a cold, steady line running through me from chest to stomach.
My phone buzzed.
Vivian had replied.
“Christmas emergency?”
I typed back, “Family emergency. I want the condo listed privately. Fast close preferred. Cash if possible.”
Three dots appeared.
Then: “Call at 8:00 tomorrow?”
I wrote, “Yes.”
When I came downstairs, Talia was standing by the front hall mirror, holding one of my old coats against herself as if trying it on.
“Oh,” she said, startled. “Mom said you probably wouldn’t need half your stuff after you moved.”
“I haven’t moved,” I said.
“Right, I know. I mean after.”
The hall light cast gold over her face. She looked pretty in the way she always had, soft and delicate and easily forgiven. Talia could cry at a stop sign and somehow end up with someone else paying the ticket. I did not hate her for that. Not then.
But I hated the way she folded my coat over her arm instead of putting it back.
“That coat was mine,” I said.
She blinked.
“I was just looking.”
“Put it back.”
For one second, her face changed. The softness disappeared, and something sharper flashed underneath.
Then Mom appeared behind her.
“Maris, don’t be petty tonight.”
Petty.
My condo had just been handed over like a casserole dish, and I was petty over a coat.
I took the coat from Talia myself and placed it on the rack.
Brenner came down the hallway carrying a plate of cookies wrapped in foil.
“Everybody good?” he asked, smiling too wide.
Dad called from the living room, “We’re good. Maris is just adjusting.”
Adjusting.
I left twenty minutes later with my pie plate, kitchen towels, and a plastic bag of turkey I did not want.
Outside, the cold hit my face so hard it brought tears to my eyes. Snow had started again, soft and steady, sticking to the windshield. My car smelled faintly of peppermint from a candy cane I had left in the console.
I sat behind the wheel and did not start the engine.
Through the front window, I could see them moving around the living room, warm and bright in the yellow light. My mother hugged Talia again. Brenner lifted Ivy onto his shoulders. Dad poured another drink.
They looked like a family celebrating good news.
Not one of them looked toward the driveway.
That was the second clue, though maybe it was not a clue at all. Maybe it was the whole answer.
When I got home, my condo was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the distant hiss of tires on wet pavement below. The lake beyond the windows was black and restless, catching little shards of city light. I walked from room to room touching things without meaning to.
The brass lamp I bought secondhand after my first bonus.
The bookshelf I assembled alone and cursed at for three hours.
The small crack in the kitchen tile near the sink from when I dropped a cast iron pan.
My home had history in every corner.
My family had not seen a home. They had seen inventory.
I opened my laptop and pulled up old mortgage statements, tax records, repair receipts, insurance documents, HOA emails, bank transfers. Twelve years of proof. Twelve years of me.
At 11:47 p.m., my mother texted.
“Your father is so proud of you for doing the right thing.”
I read it twice.
May you like
Then I created a folder on my desktop and named it “Condo Sale.”
By morning, I knew exactly what I was going to do.
