My Sister Said I Didn’t Count and Seated Me by the Trash at Her Wedding So I Left a Small Silver Gift on the Present Table

for company, I kept returning to the image of Noah reading those words and not knowing what they meant. The naive sweetness that Laya had identified as a vulnerability to exploit. The house that was meant to be his by Christmas.

My mother had texted that morning: Please, Amber, no drama today. It’s Laya’s day.

That was all I had ever been to her, in continue reading …