My sister-in-law, Tiffany, held up the scarf I spent twenty-four hours knitting and, in front of our entire family, called it “charity-shop chic.”
It was our annual Christmas Eve party, and I had poured my heart into that gift, just like all the others I’d made by hand.
Her gift to me? An expired coupon to a craft store.
Meanwhile, she was handing out brand-new designer bags to her favorite relatives like she was Oprah. She made sure everyone saw the labels.
My own husband just stood there and said nothing.
She thought those expensive bags were her weapons, a way to prove how much better she was. She had no idea that by morning, those same bags would become my ammunition, and the donation receipts would be the only thank you cards she’d be getting.
The Weight of a Gift: The Last Stitch
The needle slid through the thick wool, a tiny silver fish swimming in a sea of forest green. One last loop, a pull, a knot. Done. I snipped the thread, the sound barely audible over the Christmas carols playing from my laptop. The scarf lay across my desk, impossibly soft. Twenty-four hours of work, give or take. A whole day of my life, knitted into something meant to keep Tiffany’s neck warm.
My work as a freelance illustrator paid for the mortgage and my daughter Maya’s braces, but it didn’t leave much for the kind of Christmas my husband’s family had come to expect. Their holiday celebrations were an Olympic sport in competitive consumerism, and my sister-in-law, Tiffany, was the perennial gold medalist.
I ran my hand over the scarf, thinking of the other gifts piled in a canvas bag by the door. For my niece, a small, vibrant watercolor of her beloved mutt, Rufus, his goofy underbite captured perfectly. For my mother-in-law, Carol, a custom-blended loose-leaf tea with dried orange peel and cloves, presented in a hand-painted tin. For my husband, Mark, a shadow box containing a map of the national park where he’d proposed, with our hiking path traced in red thread.
They were pieces of my time, of my attention. That had to be enough. It was all I had to give.
Maya, my twelve-year-old, appeared in the doorway of my small home office, already dressed for the party in a velvet green dress that matched the scarf. “Are you done yet, Mom? Dad’s starting to do his nervous pacing thing.”
“I’m done,” I said, holding up the scarf. “What do you think?”
She came over and touched it. “It’s really nice. Aunt Tiffany will like it.”
I wished I shared her certainty. The thought of the evening ahead settled in my stomach, a cold, heavy stone. It wasn’t just the gifts. It was the entire performance. The unspoken judgments, the passive-aggressive compliments, the delicate dance of pretending we were all just one big, happy family instead of a loose collection of anxieties and resentments bound by blood and tradition.
“Okay,” I sighed, folding the scarf carefully and wrapping it in simple brown paper. “Let’s go face the music.”
The Arrival
My in-laws’ house was an assault on the senses. The front yard looked like a Christmas-themed casino, with strobing reindeer and an inflatable Santa so large it probably had its own zip code. Inside, the heat was cranked to a suffocating level, thick with the smell of roasting turkey, pine needles, and a cloying cinnamon potpourri. Thirty relatives shouted over one another, creating a wall of noise that hit you the moment you walked through the door.
Mark’s mother, Carol, spotted us immediately. She navigated the chaos and wrapped me in a hug that smelled of flour and perfume. “Sarah, you made it! Mark, your father needs help with the Wi-Fi. It’s on the fritz again.”
She pulled back and looked at the small, hand-painted ornament I brought as a hostess gift—a miniature winter landscape on a thin slice of birch wood. “Oh, this is beautiful,” she said, her voice genuine. “You have such a talent.” For a moment, the stone in my stomach lifted.
Mark, relieved of social duty, disappeared toward his father’s study. I was left adrift in a sea of cousins and uncles. I found Maya, who was already being absorbed by her cousins, and managed to snag a glass of lukewarm white wine.
Then, the front door opened again, letting in a blast of cold air and a new center of gravity: Tiffany and her husband, Kevin. Tiffany paused in the doorway for dramatic effect, draped in a gold sequin dress that looked both expensive and incredibly uncomfortable. Kevin, a blandly handsome man who worked in finance, trailed behind her like a well-dressed porter, carrying a massive sack that looked suspiciously like Santa’s.
Tiffany scanned the room, her eyes skipping over the less important relatives. She air-kissed a wealthy aunt, gave a squeal of delight for a cousin who’d just been made partner at her law firm, and gave me a nod so slight it could have been a muscle twitch.
“We just got back from Cabo yesterday!” she announced to the room at large. “The sun was just divine. Kevin spoiled me rotten, of course.” She patted the pristine white handbag hanging from her arm. “Pre-Christmas Christmas, you know?”
No, I did not know.
A Different Kind of Currency
The official gift exchange wasn’t supposed to happen until after dinner, but Tiffany operated on her own schedule. She set her massive sack down by the fireplace, the brand names on the shopping bags within just visible: Kate Spade, Michael Kors, Coach. It was a declaration of intent.
She walked over to Jessica, a cousin on Mark’s side who had recently become a minor Instagram influencer. Tiffany’s smile was blinding. “Jess, sweetie, I saw this and just had to get it for you.”
She pulled a large, glossy box from her sack. The room quieted, a subtle shift in atmospheric pressure. People who had been deep in conversation now watched from the corners of their eyes.
Jessica unwrapped the box with practiced enthusiasm, gasping as she pulled out a sleek, black leather Kate Spade tote. “Oh my God, Tiff! You shouldn’t have!” The exclamation was a command, not a suggestion. It meant, Look, everyone. Look what I got.
“It’s nothing,” Tiffany said, waving her hand dismissively, a gesture that meant the exact opposite. “It’ll be perfect for your influencer events.”
A chorus of oohs and aahs rippled through the room. I took a sip of my wine, the cheap chardonnay suddenly tasting like vinegar. I felt my own gift bag by my feet, the simple paper-wrapped parcels inside suddenly feeling flimsy and pathetic. This wasn’t a gift exchange; it was a public transaction. Tiffany was buying loyalty, reinforcing a hierarchy where she sat at the top. The rest of us were just spectators.
I saw Carol watching from across the room, her expression unreadable. She caught my eye and gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head, but I didn’t know what it meant. Was she commiserating with me? Or was she just as tired of the theatrics as I was?
The Performance Begins
Tiffany wasn’t finished. She was glowing, energized by the attention. This was her stage, and she was putting on the performance of a lifetime.
“Aunt Carol!” she chirped, turning her high-wattage smile on her own mother, a woman who looked permanently exhausted. She presented her with a similar, albeit slightly smaller, designer box. Another purse. Her mother unwrapped it with a tired smile, murmuring a thank you that was drowned out by Tiffany’s narration of where she bought it and what a great deal she got, which of course wasn’t a great deal at all but an astronomical price meant to signal her generosity.
Next was a set of ludicrously expensive noise-canceling headphones for an uncle who had recently sold his software company. “So you can tune out the noise on your private jet!” Tiffany joked, and the uncle, a man I’d never heard speak more than ten words, let out a booming laugh.
With each gift, the family cleaved more cleanly in two. There were the Chosen, the ones who received a glossy box and entry into Tiffany’s inner circle. And then there were the rest of us, the audience. The Have-Nots. I watched Mark, who had finally returned from his IT support mission. He stood by the mantelpiece, swirling the ice in his whiskey glass, a pained look on his face. He hated this as much as I did, but he would never, ever say anything. His role in this family was to be the quiet, agreeable son. The peacekeeper.
The air grew thick with unspoken things. The joy of the season had been suffocated by the weight of price tags.
Tiffany beamed, placing her hands on her hips. She surveyed the room like a Roman empress, deciding who was next to be blessed by her beneficence. “Oh, I have a few more of these for my favorite people!” she announced, her voice dripping with magnanimous delight. She reached back into her sack, and her eyes, glittering and sharp, landed on me.
Charity-Shop Chic: Small Victories
I couldn’t just sit there and let her run the show. I needed to do something, to inject some small measure of sanity back into the evening. Before Tiffany could continue her parade of conspicuous consumption, I picked up my bag and walked over to my ten-year-old niece, Lucy, who was sitting quietly on the floor, watching the spectacle with wide, confused eyes.
“I have something for you, sweetie,” I whispered, handing her the small, square package.
She tore off the paper, her movements jerky with excitement. When she saw the watercolor painting of her scruffy terrier, Rufus, her face split into a grin of pure, unadulterated joy. “It’s Rufus! You painted his snaggletooth!” She threw her arms around my waist and squeezed with all her might. “Thank you, Aunt Sarah! It’s the best present ever.”
Her father, a quiet man who was usually lost in the shuffle, smiled at me over her head. “That’s really something, Sarah. Thank you.”
Buoyed by this small, genuine moment, I moved on to my mother-in-law. I handed Carol the painted tin. “It’s a tea blend I made. Orange, clove, and cinnamon.”
Carol opened the lid and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. “Oh, Sarah. That smells like heaven. This is wonderful.” She placed it on the end table beside her as if it were a precious artifact. “You always know just what to do.”
Two for two. The stone in my stomach dissolved a little. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe thoughtfulness still had a place here. I felt Mark’s hand on my shoulder, a brief, supportive squeeze. It was a flicker of hope in the blinding glare of Tiffany’s sequined dress.
The Un-Gift
The brief respite was over. Dinner was finished, the plates were cleared, and now we were all corralled back into the living room for the official gift exchange. It was a chaotic flurry of torn paper and forced gratitude.
Finally, only a few gifts remained under the tree. Tiffany, who had been holding court, turned her attention to me. The smile she wore was a work of art, all teeth and no warmth. It didn’t reach her eyes, which were cold and calculating.
“Oh, Sarah, I didn’t forget you,” she cooed, the sound cutting through the low chatter in the room.
Instead of reaching for one of the remaining boxes, she picked up her own expensive handbag from the floor beside her. She unzipped a side pocket with a flourish and pulled out a single, folded piece of paper. It was creased and slightly worn, as if it had been living in her purse for weeks.
She held it out to me. “Here you go.”
I took it from her, my fingers suddenly numb. I unfolded the paper. It was a coupon for “Joann Fabric and Craft Stores.” Across the top, in bold red letters, it offered: “20% OFF ONE REGULAR-PRICED ITEM.” I felt a flush of heat creep up my neck. This was a joke. It had to be a joke.
“I know how much you love a good deal,” Tiffany said, her voice loud enough for at least half the room to hear. “And you’re so… creative.”
My eyes scanned the fine print at the bottom of the coupon. My breath caught in my throat. “Offer valid through December 10th.” It was Christmas Eve. The coupon had been expired for two weeks.
She hadn’t just given me a coupon. She had given me trash. A piece of useless paper that served no purpose other than to mock me. It was a meticulously crafted insult, delivered with a perfect smile.
A Public Execution
My hands were shaking. I could feel every eye in the room on me, waiting for my reaction. I wanted to crumple the coupon in my fist. I wanted to throw it in her face. I wanted to scream.
Instead, I took a deep breath and forced a tight, brittle smile onto my own face. “Thank you, Tiffany. How thoughtful.” My voice sounded alien, thin and reedy.
I still had her gift. The soft, green scarf I had spent an entire day of my life creating. It was in my bag at my feet. Swallowing the lump of acid in my throat, I reached down, pulled out the paper-wrapped parcel, and handed it to her. “This is for you.”
Tiffany took it, her expression one of mild amusement. She unwrapped it with theatrical slowness, letting the simple brown paper fall to the floor. She picked up the scarf, holding it between her thumb and forefinger as if it were a dirty rag she’d found on the street.
She let the silence hang in the air for a beat, drawing out the moment. Then she laughed. It wasn’t a real laugh; it was a high, piercing sound designed to command attention and inflict maximum damage.
“Oh, my God,” she said, holding the scarf up for everyone to see. The deep green wool, so beautiful and warm in my office, now looked drab and homespun under the harsh glare of the Christmas lights. “It’s so… crafty.”
She scanned the room, making eye contact with the other members of her inner circle, inviting them to share in the joke. Her lips curled into a sneer.
“It’s very… charity-shop chic.”
The insult landed like a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs. Charity-shop chic. A clever, cruel little phrase that dismissed my time, my effort, my love, and my financial reality in a single, dismissive breath. It branded me as poor, tacky, and pathetic.
The Sound of Silence
The room was utterly silent. No one laughed with her. But no one spoke up for me, either. They just stared. Some looked at the floor, some at the ceiling, some at the dazzling Christmas tree. Anywhere but at me. Their silence was a form of consent. In that moment, they were all her accomplices.
My gaze flew to Mark. He was my husband. Her brother. He was supposed to be my partner, my defender. I stared at him, my eyes pleading. Say something. Please. Say anything.
He stood frozen by the fireplace, his face pale, his knuckles white where he gripped his empty glass. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked from Tiffany’s triumphant, sneering face to my shattered one. I could see the war raging inside him—the lifelong habit of avoiding conflict battling the duty to his wife.
The habit won.
He dropped his gaze and stared at his own expensive, polished shoes. He said nothing. He did nothing.
The silence that followed was more damning than Tiffany’s words. It was a confirmation of my humiliation. In that moment, I had never felt so completely and utterly alone, stranded in a room full of people who were supposed to be my family. The pain of Tiffany’s insult was a sharp sting, but the pain of my husband’s silent betrayal was a deep, crushing weight that threatened to break me.
The Plan in the Quiet: The White Tile Confessional
I didn’t run. I moved with a strange, deliberate calm, as if I were watching a character in a movie. I placed the expired coupon on the coffee table, stood up, and walked out of the living room. My footsteps made no sound on the thick runner in the hallway.
I went into the downstairs guest bathroom and locked the door. The room was cold and sterile, all white tile and polished chrome. I leaned against the door, my forehead pressed against the cool wood, and breathed. In and out. The ringing in my ears slowly subsided.
There were no tears of sadness. The hurt had burned away almost instantly, leaving behind something harder and hotter: pure, undiluted rage. It was a fury so intense it made my vision swim. It wasn’t just at Tiffany. It was rage at the smug faces of her chosen court. It was rage at the cowardly silence of the entire family.
But most of it, the blackest, heaviest part of it, was for Mark. He had stood there and let it happen. He had watched his sister humiliate his wife and chosen his own comfort over my dignity. He had let me stand alone. The foundation of our marriage, which I had always assumed was solid rock, suddenly felt like sand.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My face was blotchy, my eyes wild. Charity-shop chic. The phrase echoed in my head, a venomous little mantra. Fine. If they wanted to treat me like I was nothing, then I would become nothing. A ghost. A non-entity. I would simply disappear from their lives. But that felt too passive. It was a surrender. And I was done surrendering.
An Unlikely Absolution
A soft knock came at the door. “Sarah?”
It was Carol. My first instinct was to say I was fine, to hide. But I was tired of hiding. I unlocked the door.
She didn’t offer a hug or a flurry of platitudes. She just looked at my face, her own etched with a deep, weary sadness. “I saw what she did,” she said, her voice low and firm. “And I saw that my son did nothing. I am so sorry, Sarah.”
She reached out and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear, a simple, motherly gesture that almost broke me. “I raised two children in this house,” she continued, looking past me into the hallway as if seeing ghosts. “One of them, I taught to be kind. The other… the other I spoiled. I let her believe that what you have is more important than who you are.”
She met my eyes again, and I saw a flicker of her own anger. “That girl has a hole in her soul that no amount of money or designer bags will ever fill. Don’t you ever for one second believe that her ugliness has anything to do with you. You are worth more than all of it, Sarah.”
Her words weren’t a solution. They didn’t erase the humiliation. But they were a validation. They were an anchor in the storm of my anger. She saw the truth. She wasn’t blinded by the sequins and the price tags. She was giving me permission to be angry. More than that, she was confirming that my anger was justified.
It was the absolution I didn’t know I needed. It didn’t soothe the rage. It focused it.
The Dragon’s Hoard
I left the bathroom feeling strangely clear-headed. The chaos of the party was starting to wind down. People were gathering their coats and saying their goodbyes. I walked past the guest bedroom, where a mountain of outerwear was piled on the bed.
And there they were.
The trophies from Tiffany’s victory tour. A neat pile of five identical Kate Spade bags, their black leather gleaming under the soft lamplight. Beside them, two sets of expensive Bose headphones. They were sitting there, unattended, discarded as carelessly as the wrapping paper that now filled a trash bag in the corner.
An idea, cold and sharp and dangerous, slid into my mind. I could take them. Just walk out the door with a handbag under my arm. An eye for an eye. It would be a small, petty act of theft that would make me feel better for about five minutes and then make me feel like a monster forever. It would make me as ugly as she was.
I started to walk away, but then another thought followed, quiet and insistent. What if the gifts weren’t for her? What if they were for people who actually needed them?
It wasn’t about the monetary value. It was about the symbolic value. Tiffany had used these objects as weapons to assert status and inflict pain. What if I could transform them? What if I could turn these symbols of shallow materialism into instruments of genuine charity?
It was a terrifying thought. It was grand larceny. It was also, in a strange and twisted way, perfect justice. It wasn’t just about getting even. It was about making a point. It was about taking her currency—the hollow, meaningless value of a brand name—and exchanging it for real, human value.
The ethical debate in my head lasted for a full thirty seconds. My own moral code, my fear of getting caught, my deep-seated desire to be a good person, wrestled with the raw, righteous fury that Carol had just validated. The fury won.
The Point of No Return
My heart was hammering against my ribs, but my hands were steady. I walked back into the living room. The party was breaking up, and in the chaos of goodbyes, no one was paying attention to me. Near the front door was a collection of empty shopping bags from stores people had visited earlier in the week, brought in and forgotten. I picked up two large, opaque ones from Bloomingdale’s. Perfect.
I walked back to the guest room. I felt hyper-aware, every sense on high alert. The sound of my own breathing was deafening. I slipped the five handbags into one of the shopping bags and the two boxes of headphones into the other. They were surprisingly heavy. The weight of someone else’s privilege.
I put on my coat, grabbed the bags, and walked toward the front door. Mark saw me and started to approach. “Sarah, wait. We need to talk.”
“Not now, Mark,” I said, my voice flat and cold. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. “I’m going home. I’ll take an Uber. You can stay and enjoy your family.”
I walked out the door before he could respond, leaving him standing in the entryway. The blast of cold night air was a relief, clearing my head. I walked to my car, my heels crunching on the salted driveway. I put the bags on the passenger seat, got in, and started the engine.
I drove for a few miles, my mind racing. I could still turn back. I could sneak the bags back into the house, and no one would ever know. I could go home, have a screaming fight with Mark, and spend the next year dreading another Christmas Eve.
Or I could see this through.
I pulled over to the side of the road and typed “women’s shelter near me” into my phone. The first result was a place called Hope House, less than three miles away. The name felt like a sign.
I drove there, my headlights cutting through the dark, quiet suburban streets. I pulled into the small, poorly lit parking lot and stopped in front of a modest brick building. A simple sign by the door read, “Hope House Women’s Shelter.”
I looked at the bags on the seat next to me. The spoils of a cruel war. This was it. The point of no return. I took one last, deep, shuddering breath, and turned the key, silencing the engine.
The Thank You Card: An Exchange of Value
The woman behind the reinforced glass at the front desk looked exhausted, but her eyes were kind. She was older, with graying hair pulled back in a loose bun, and she wore a faded Christmas sweater. The lobby was clean but sparse, smelling faintly of bleach.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice raspy with fatigue.
“I have some donations,” I said, hoisting the heavy Bloomingdale’s bags onto the counter.
She buzzed the security door and came out. When I pulled out the first Kate Spade bag, her eyebrows shot up. I placed all five of them, plus the two boxes of headphones, in a line on the counter. The pristine, luxury goods looked alien in this humble space.
The woman didn’t gasp or get excited about the labels. She just ran a practical hand over the leather of one of the purses. “Our residents will be so grateful,” she said softly. “Many of them come here with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Having something new, something nice… it can be a real boost to their dignity.”
Dignity. That word hung in the air between us.
“This is an incredible donation,” she continued, looking at me with a new curiosity. “Do you need a receipt for tax purposes?”
That was the lynchpin of the entire plan. “Yes, please,” I said. “Is it possible to get a separate letter of acknowledgement for each item? For the people who donated them?”
She nodded, understanding immediately. “Of course.”
She spent the next ten minutes typing at her old desktop computer. She carefully documented each item: “One (1) Kate Spade leather tote, black,” and “One (1) pair of Bose QuietComfort headphones.” She printed out seven separate letters on official Hope House letterhead, each one detailing the item and thanking the anonymous donor for their generosity. The estimated value at the bottom of the pile was well over two thousand dollars.
She handed me the stack of papers. “Thank you again. You’ve made a real difference for some women tonight.”
Walking back to my car, I didn’t feel triumphant. I didn’t feel victorious. I felt a strange, hollow calm. The rage was gone, replaced by a cold, clear sense of purpose. I had done it. Now I just had to live with it.
The Morning After
Christmas morning at the in-laws’ was a tradition. We all gathered for brunch, a low-key affair meant to be a gentle recovery from the previous night’s chaos. But the atmosphere today was anything but gentle. It was thick with unspoken tension. I hadn’t spoken a word to Mark since I’d gotten home late last night. He had slept on the couch.
We were picking at a breakfast casserole when Jessica, the influencer cousin, spoke up. “This is so weird, has anyone seen my new purse? I swear I left it in the guest room, but it’s not there.”
A murmur went through the room. One by one, the other recipients of Tiffany’s largesse realized their gifts were also missing. The two aunts, the rich uncle, Tiffany’s own mother. Panic began to set in.
“My bag is gone too!”
“The headphones! Kevin, did you see the headphones?”
Tiffany, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, slammed her fork down on her plate. “The cleaning staff,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing. “Carol, you hired a new cleaning service this year, didn’t you? They must have stolen them. We have to call the police.”
Carol looked aghast. “Tiffany, don’t be ridiculous. Maria has cleaned this house for fifteen years.”
“Well, someone took thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise out of this house!” Tiffany stood up, her face a mask of furious indignation. “I am not going to let some thief get away with this!”
A Different Kind of Receipt
I took a slow sip of my coffee, letting the chaos swirl for another moment. Then, I calmly folded my napkin and placed it on the table. I stood up.
“I know where they are,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the noise, and the room fell silent. Every eye turned to me.
I walked over to my purse, which I had placed on a side table. From it, I pulled out a small stack of plain white envelopes. My heart was pounding, a frantic drum against my ribs, but I forced my hands to remain steady.
I walked first to Jessica. “I just wanted to say thank you,” I said, handing her an envelope. Confused, she opened it. I watched her face shift from bewilderment to disbelief as she read the donation receipt from Hope House, made out in her name.
I moved around the room, a silent angel of reckoning, handing out the envelopes one by one. To the aunts. To the uncle. To Tiffany’s mother. With each one, the same wave of shock and dawning comprehension.
Finally, I stood in front of Tiffany. She stared at me, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and fury. I handed her the last two envelopes.
“You were so right, Tiffany,” I said, my voice even and clear. “You said last night that some gifts are more meaningful than others. You inspired all of us to be charitable this year. So we donated your gifts to women who have nothing.”
The Reckoning
Tiffany tore open the envelopes. She read the receipts, her face contorting. For a moment, she looked like a lost child. Then, the confusion curdled into pure, unadulterated rage. Her carefully constructed facade of sophisticated wealth shattered, revealing the spoiled, entitled brat underneath.
She let out a shriek, a wild, primal sound of frustration. “You STOLE them! You are a sick, jealous THIEF!”
She lunged at me, her hands clawed, but a figure stepped between us. It was Mark.
“Enough, Tiff,” he said. His voice was quiet but firm in a way I had never heard before. He didn’t look at her; he looked at me. “She did what I was too afraid to do. She stood up to a bully.” He finally turned to his sister. “You humiliated her. You humiliated my wife. And I did nothing. That ends today.”
The room was dead silent, save for Tiffany’s ragged, heaving sobs.
Carol walked over, her face set like stone. She stood before her daughter, the matriarch passing judgment. “Tiffany,” she said, her voice as cold as the winter air outside. “You will apologize to Sarah. And you will not be welcome in this house next Christmas. Maybe a year of quiet reflection will teach you the value of things that can’t be bought.”
Tiffany let out another wounded scream, grabbed her thousand-dollar coat, and stormed out of the house. She slammed the front door so hard that a framed family photo on the wall rattled and fell to the floor, the glass shattering.
A deafening silence descended. Everyone stared at the broken picture frame, a perfect metaphor for the morning. I looked at Mark. His face was a mess of shame, regret, and a flicker of something I hadn’t seen in a long time: respect.
He opened his mouth to speak, but I just shook my head. Not yet. I looked over at the Christmas tree, with its mix of expensive, store-bought ornaments and the simple, handmade ones Maya and I had made over the years. I didn’t know if what I had done was right. I didn’t know if I had won, or if I had just become a different kind of monster. But for the first time all weekend, the house was quiet
About the Author
