At Christmas dinner, Mom gifted everyone but me—then smiled and said, “Be grateful you can sit here,” like that was my present.

“Elelliana, I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

Her hand went to her chest, fingers splayed the way she always positioned them when she wanted to look wounded.

“I gave you everything. I’ve been a single mother for over 20 years. And now you want to throw me out like garbage.”

Rick, right on cue.

“This is what happens when you spoil a child.”

I didn’t look at Rick. I looked at Louise. Then Marcus.

“Aunt Louise. Marcus. Can I ask you something?”

Louise blinked. Marcus shifted his weight.

“Does anyone in this family know who pays the rent on Mom’s house?”

Silence.

Louise glanced at Diane. Diane’s jaw tightened.

“No one. Because Mom told everyone she handles it herself.”

“I do handle—”

I held up the manila folder. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to.

“Mom, I have four years of bank statements in this folder. Every zel transfer. Every month. $1,200 from my account to yours. Do you want me to show them?”

My mother’s face did something I’d never seen before.

The performance, the tears, the trembling lip, the hand on the chest— all of it froze like someone had pulled the plug on a machine mid-cycle.

Her skin went pale. Actually pale. The blood left her cheeks in real time.

Louise stepped forward.

“What? What is she talking about, Diane?”

“She’s lying.” My mother’s voice came back too loud, too fast. “She sent a little money here and there.”

“$57,600, Mom.” I said it the way I read vitals to a doctor. Calm. Clinical. Exact. “That’s not here and there.”

The hallway went quiet. I could hear someone’s television playing two floors down.

My mother was mid-sentence, something about context, about how I was twisting things, when my phone buzzed in my back pocket.

FaceTime.

Grandma Lorraine.

I looked at the screen. Then I looked at the four people in my hallway.

“Hold on,” I said. “Someone wants to speak.”

I accepted the call and turned the phone around so the screen faced outward.

My grandmother’s face filled the frame, sitting in her recliner, reading glasses low, eyes sharp and steady. The room behind her was quiet. The TV was off.