Bright, easy, holiday laughter. The kind that should have melted away a long day at the office.
My mother’s house in Franklin, Tennessee, looked the way it did every December, like something lifted from a magazine. White lights wound up the banister. A towering tree glittered in the front window. Red ribbon, glass ornaments, and silver bells covered every surface that would hold them.
It was the kind of home people post online with captions about family and tradition and love.
Then I heard something else, coming from the kitchen.
The scrape of a small stool on tile. The careful clink of a plate lowered into the sink.
And a tiny voice, barely above a whisper: “I’m sorry. I’ll do it better.”
I froze in the entryway, keys still in my hand.
In the living room, my nieces, Madison and Harper, sat on the rug in matching holiday dresses, giggling over brand-new dolls buried in shredded wrapping paper. My sister, Lauren, crouched beside the tree snapping photo after photo.
