Chapter 1
My husband planned to take another woman’s family to my mountain cabin for Christmas, leave me and our eleven-year-old daughter at home, and make me pay for their trip.
Sophie discovered his plan when she opened the pajamas.
“Dad, they’re here!”
She knelt beneath our Christmas tree and lifted four matching red sets from the box.
The embroidered names read Ethan, Vanessa, Noah, and Beth.
Vanessa was Ethan’s best friend’s widow. Noah was her son. Beth was her mother.
Sophie dug through the tissue paper.
“Where’s mine?”
Ethan glanced up from his phone. “You don’t need one.”
She looked down at the empty box. “I can wear last year’s.”
“You’re staying home with Mom.”
Her hand stopped inside the box. Beside her lay the paper angel she had spent three evenings making for the cabin’s tree.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re busy with work, Madison.”
“I took the week off.”
He put his phone down. “Then you’ll have plenty of time with Sophie.”
Her suitcase was already beside the stairs. Ethan had stepped around it twice that morning.
“I packed everything,” she said. “You won’t have to help.”
“Sophie, this isn’t about packing.”
“I can sit in the middle. I don’t mind.”
I watched her glance toward the driveway, calculating how little room she could take up in her father’s car.
Ethan shook his head.
“Noah needs this. He lost his dad.”
“Then bring him,” she said. “I didn’t say he couldn’t come.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. Sophie waited for an answer, clutching a piece of tissue paper until it became a small, hard ball.
“Vanessa wants a quiet Christmas,” he said.
“With my dad?”
“Don’t make this difficult.”
I crossed the room and took Sophie’s hand. Her fingers were cold.
“She asked a simple question.”
“Vanessa has had two hard years.”
“And your daughter is standing right here.”
He reached for his phone, ending the conversation without answering. Sophie looked toward her suitcase again.
“Can I at least leave my angel in my room?”
“Noah’s using your room.”
She stared at him.
I felt her hand tighten around mine. That room had her name painted on the door. Ethan had helped her paint it.
“Where are you sleeping?” I asked.
“The main bedroom. Vanessa needs the bed; I’ll take the extra one.”
My bed. My daughter’s room. All assigned before either of us had been asked.
His phone lit up on the table.
Vanessa: Bring your camera Sunday. Sophie can take our pajama photo before you leave. Mom wants one framed.
Sophie read it.
For a moment, she only looked at the four names.
“I can take your family picture,” she said, “but I can’t go with you?”
“She’s trying to include you,” Ethan replied.
Sophie let go of my hand. She picked up her angel carefully, shielding its bent wing, and carried it upstairs.
Ethan sighed when her door closed.
“Now she thinks this is some kind of rejection.”
“What would you call it?”
He pulled a grocery list from beneath the box and held it out.
“Can we finish discussing this later? Vanessa needs these ordered tonight.”
I didn’t reach for it.
“Your bonus came through, right?” he added. “Send me thirty-two hundred. That should cover the food and rentals.”
Upstairs, Sophie unzipped her suitcase.
The sound carried down into the room where her father stood waiting for my money.
I took the four pajamas out of their tissue paper and pushed them back into the shipping box.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Packing your things.”
“Madison.”
“You remembered her mother’s size,” I said. “You didn’t even ask your daughter if she wanted to come.”
He held the grocery list toward me again.
I left his hand hanging there.
“Tell Vanessa to pay for her own Christmas.”