By the time the printer screamed to life, Christmas died in my kitchen. Not the lights or the recipes or the old carols—those were just props, I understood that now—but the story I’d been told about my place in this family. Each page the machine spat out was another inch of ground I hadn’t realized I’d already lost, another quiet signature I’d apparently given in my sleep. Kevin’s eyes moved faster, then slower. Tiffany’s did not move at all. And as the word “residence” appeared again and again, pinned to my address like a tag on a body, I realized this was not a misunderstanding. It was a transfer. Of space. Of authority. Of me. Somewhere between the second draft of their future and the third, I stopped being a mother with a house and became an obstacle with a mor… Continues…
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