You can spend years translating cruelty into “concern” if the person delivering it shares your last name. You can excuse it as old-fashioned, as “just how she is,” as something you owe a little patience and a lot of yourself. Then one sentence lands so precisely that every euphemism falls off the bone. We’d spent the morning writing names in frosting, cartwheeling sugar roses across a hundred cookies. Emma tucked the tin under her arm like treasure and whispered, “Maybe this year is different.”

The call came during leftovers and spreadsheets: a gentle voice from a fraud department asking me to verify “a few unusual transactions.” I could have said no. Instead, I opened the account page and watched a list of purchases scroll like a travel brochure I hadn’t ordered—premium cabin, island resort, shore excursions, on-board shopping, photo package, room service as if hunger were a hobby. I kept my tone even. “Those weren’t me.” “Did anyone in your household have permission?” she asked. “For

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