“She made a tactical error,” Diane countered smoothly, her chin tilting upward. “Tonight’s gathering is restricted to immediate family.”
I stared at the woman who had given birth to me, my mind short-circuiting. “I am immediate family.”
Her mouth compressed into a bloodless, razor-thin line. “Do not complicate this, Emma. Please.”
From the open car door behind me, Lily’s fragile, musical voice floated into the frigid air. “Mommy? Are we going inside to see Grandpa Robert?”
A violent flush of heat rushed into my cheeks, so intense the edges of my vision blurred. My mother darted a brief, clinical look toward the vehicle before lowering her voice—a cowardly tactic designed to simulate kindness. “Not tonight. It is significantly better this way.”
Better this way. I looked past her immaculate shoulder at the house that contained my entire childhood. I saw the warm amber lighting, the meticulously set china, the people comfortably occupying chairs where I was apparently a contaminant. If I opened my mouth in that moment, I would unleash a torrent of venom that could never be walked back.
I set the glass dish of lemon bars onto the wrought-iron porch bench. Without a single word, I pivoted, slid back into the driver’s seat, threw the car into reverse, and fled.
When Lily asked why Grandma looked so angry, I swallowed the ash in my throat and lied. I told her the oven was broken, and we were pivoting to a clandestine French fry mission. She accepted the fabrication with the tragic, easy faith that children grant adults, genuinely believing we know how to navigate the world.
We had been on the road for precisely nine minutes when my phone illuminated the dark cabin.
Dad. I jabbed the speakerphone icon. “Hi.”
“Where exactly are you?” my father barked, the static of the connection crackling with his fury.
“Driving down Ogden Avenue.”
“Rotate that vehicle immediately and return to this property.”
My knuckles turned white against the leather steering wheel. “Dad, I am not driving back there just to be publicly humiliated a second time.”
“You are not returning to be a victim,” Robert commanded, his voice sharp enough to carve diamond. “You are returning because this is your home, and I am officially terminating this psychotic nonsense.”
