His parents’ house could’ve been on the front of a holiday card.
White lights traced the gutters. Garland framed the doorway. Cinnamon and pine drifted through the air before I even crossed the threshold. Laughter spilled from the living room like this was the kind of Christmas families brag about.
I stepped inside carrying a foil tray in one hand and my phone in the other — the catering invoice still open on the screen. I had just put down a deposit to feed thirty-five people who never once asked if I actually wanted to host.
Daniel pressed a quick kiss to my cheek, already steering me toward the kitchen.
“Mom said you’ve got everything covered,” he murmured, like I was part of the evening’s logistics.
I smiled.
Because in that house, smiling kept you manageable. Pleasant. Low-maintenance.
For months, Elena and Lucas had treated me like built-in childcare, dropping their kids at our place every weekend without asking. The one Saturday I asked for to myself, Daniel laughed and called me sensitive.
I told myself Christmas would be different.
Then I noticed it.
An extra coat hanging in the hallway closet.
Not mine. Not anyone’s I didn’t recognize.
And then the perfume reached me.
Soft. Expensive. Familiar.
A laugh echoed from the den. “Where’s Samantha?”
“She’s just stopping by,” Daniel said quickly. Too quickly.
Something inside me shifted.
Samantha wasn’t an accident.
She was an arrangement.
The receipt in my coat pocket no longer felt generous.
It felt like documentation.
I slipped upstairs, telling myself I needed my charger — though really, I needed air. As I passed Margaret’s bedroom, her voice floated through the cracked door, light and eager, like she was coordinating something delicate.
“It’s fine,” she whispered into the phone. “Lauren will keep all the kids upstairs. Ten of them. Movies, snacks… she’ll be busy the whole night.”
A pause.
“And Samantha can sit next to Daniel without it being uncomfortable. Lauren won’t even notice.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
It wasn’t just my money they were using.
It wasn’t just my time.
They were planning my distraction.
They didn’t want me beside my husband.
They wanted me occupied, contained — conveniently upstairs while his past took my seat at the table.
(Full continues in the first comment.)
