Page 116 of Between the Lines

“Claire can join us when she’s finished.”

I don’t miss her pointed stare, the condemnation that comes down her nose from where she directs her gaze.

“Okay. I’m gonna sit with Claire.”

Harper shrugs, scooting her chair closer to mine. I’ll tell her one day, how her childlike simplicity was a unity I didn’t know I needed until it was offered to me. One by one, my siblings agree. My mother’s gaze narrows, meeting my father’s for support. But he’s too wrapped up in his iPad to care, to notice that she’s attempting to go to war.

I eat as quickly as I can, then carry Harper on one hip and Oliver on the other to the living room like they insist. I expected the tension, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to cope, as we all sit in front of the blazing fireplace with our stockings. Mysiblings all look to me for an answer. No one quite knows what to do. I motion toward Oliver, as the youngest.

“Go ahead, Ollie. Open it.”

He tears in with a huge smile, and the rest follow. Stockings have always been toothbrushes and underwear and socks and a little bit of candy. At least that normalcy remains. I open mine delicately, repackaging it after I’ve quietly thanked my mother. She’s perched on the edge of the couch, arms crossed, giving the Grinch a run for his money.

One by one, my siblings begin tearing into their presents. I watch, missing them so much that my Christmas gift could simply be the joy on their faces and nothing more. Brand name shoes and clothes, new iPads for the older two, and a Power Wheels truck for the little ones. There is no lack of wanting in this house. Not on Christmas or otherwise.

“Claire, what’d you get?” Harper asks. With a new American Girl doll in hand, she settles into my lap, already attempting to braid the doll’s hair. I snag her hands to guide her again.

“I’m not sure. I wanted to watch you guys open your gifts first.”

“I’ll go get you one,” Ryan insists. He sets down his new remote controlled car and rummages through the remaining gifts, shoving them aside as he looks for my name. There are two bags with my name on them.

“Momma, why did Santa bring Claire toilet stuff?” Ryan asks as I pull a sleek looking toilet brush contraption and a bottle of cleaner from the first bag. Poking around, I notice several other cleaning supplies, but keep that to myself.

“She moved into a new house! Maybe Santa knew that she would need things to keep it clean.”

I ammortified. But I swallow my pride and open the second gift.

“Claire loves books!” Harper says, her spirits lifted by the thick hardcover that I lug out of the second bag. “What’s it about?”

“It’s called a coffee table book,” I say, flipping through the pages ofthe farmhouse HGTV couple. Despite everything in me telling me to fight back, I lift my heavy head, paint on a tense smile, and look my mother in the eye as I say a concise, “Thank you.”

Her spiteful smirk sparkles in victory. My father, for the first time, looks up from his iPad. It’s a sidelong glance to my mother that shifts slowly to me and back to her. Wondering which one of us will cross the battle lines first.

“These are weird presents,” Harper says, digging through the bag of cleaning supplies to find a Scrub Daddy sponge. She makes a face. “Why didn’t Santa bring Claire good stuff? She wasn’t bad.”

“It seems that, since she doesn’t live here anymore, Santa didn’t know what to get her.”

It hurts. But in the same sense, I don’t wantanythingfrom them. From her. I can’t afford to be in their debt any longer. Maybe it was better this way.

It’s Zoey who makes the stand.

“Seriously?” One look at her snarled expression tells me she’s starting to see through the bullshit, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. “I’m pretty sure a mythical being who can see you when you’re both sleepingandawake could figure out a change of address, Mom.”

My dad chokes on his coffee, eyes widening as his gaze shifts from Mom to Zoey. Mom’s gaze narrows to a serpent’s, her tongue running over her teeth in contemplation.

“That’s beside the point, Zoey.”

It’s not about the presents. Not in the slightest. It’s the punch to my heart that tells me I did theabsolutebest thing I ever could have done for myself by leaving.

But in the same moment, guilt overflows. Because I’ve left my siblings here alone, unprotected, to face the same.

“We still have one more gift, but it’s not inside.”

She does a one-eighty, eyes sparkling like you’d expect a loving mother to on a Christmas morning where she wasn’t trying to teachher first born a lesson. We all follow her out to the garage. She takes Michael by the hand, and as she flips on the light, my stomach plummets to my shoes.

“Of course, you won’t be able to drive it until you get your license, but Merry Christmas, Mikey!”

A brand new Range Rover, fit with one of those big, commercial bows to the hood, takes up the spot in the garage where my used Accord once sat.

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