The last extended family holiday dinner was here. Tomorrow I could go home with my core family and we would all go over to business as usual, until the drama would start anew before Dad would try and ship me off to "spend time with your mom" for the next holiday. But anyway, live in the moment, right?

While I stirred the split pea soup Mom was serving as a first course, poultry was roasting in the oven. Elsie was in her room reading or watching a TV series or whatever it was one did before life relentlessly struck with the seriousness of college, but she still had her phone hooked up to the speakers playing Christmas pop.

Although this music genre wasn't my favorite, it was Christmas Day, and I had to admit it made the house even cozier as the snowfall outside turned into a blizzard. In the living room, where Dad and Grampa were watching Encore Western, the logs crackled in the fireplace. Mom wore a hideous reindeer sweater and was humming along off-beat to the cover of Joni Mitchell's "River" as she sprinkled herbs into the yeast roll dough she was preparing. Honest to goodness, I had missed her cooking.

"Mom, can you give me the recipe for the soup before we leave?"

She looked up and smiled at me for a second before answering: "Sure, sweetie."

With both hands in the metal bowl kneading the dough, she cleared her throat.

"There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

Oh. That's never a good sign. We'd been getting along so well.

"Okay," I stated, but it sounded like a question.

"Michael and I were talking the other day and he was telling me how his colleague's partner was in this terrible wreck—he's okay now, but still."

"That's awful," I offered, wary of where this would lead.

"It was. Anyway, when his colleague's partner arrived at the hospital, they wouldn't let him see him at first because while they had been together for years, they weren't married. And, well, we thought how unbearable it would be if that happened to one of us, so—we want to make sure everyone's comfortable with this, but not much would change."

What? My mind froze, then my body. Mom continued talking, but I wasn't listening anymore. My heart started pumping as if I had done a triathlon.

"You want to remarry?"

"Yes. It just makes sense. I mean, we've been together for almost seven years anyway."

"'It makes sense'?"

"It does," Mom said and stopped kneading to push a strand of hair off her forehead with the still clean back of her dough-covered hand. Still, a speck of dough stuck to her eyebrow.

My stomach churned and I took deep breaths so as not to hurl. While actively trying to calm the breaths in my heaving chest, I turned back to the stove and stirred the soup some more.

"Grace? You don't think it's a good idea?"

With unexpected force, I jammed the wooden spoon into the thick, green liquid and whirled around.

"What I think? I don't know, Mom, what do you think? A second attempt at marriage and a second attempt at a family after you ruined the first one? Do you think you'll be able not to cheat this time?"

I regretted the words already as they left my lips, but that didn't absorb my anger.

Mom's face turned white as the wall and her eyes wide as saucers.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she choked on her words.

"Yes, I do, you just didn't know I knew. I've known ever since you left us."

Turned to rush out of the kitchen, I felt strong and independent, but Mom's thundering voice stopped me in my tracks. "Grace, don't you dare leave this room right now."

Instinctively, I ducked my head. My hands curled into fists. At the snap of a finger, all my confidence evaporated and she made me feel like a little girl again.

There was a force in her voice I had never heard before. "You don't get to control the narrative. Not without me getting a word in, too."

***

The snow sparkled under the occasional street post, and the weather report had made it clear that it was there to stay. The air hit my face with icy fierceness, whipped locks of hair against my numb cheeks, and made tears leak out of the corners of my eyes. I pulled my red knit beanie deeper into my forehead. A gust of wind chased a piece of tinsel down the vacant street while thick, wet snowflakes poured down from the dark sky in a steady stream. A glance at my phone told me it was almost 6 pm, Christmas dinner time in most households. I had walked at least a mile through the fresh snow and still wasn't ready to heave my weary body back to the house.

'It's true, I cheated on your dad then. But the full truth is: he cheated on me, too.'

At the replay of the scene, I felt the same firm clasp around my heart that I had felt when Mom had forced me to sit down at the kitchen table with her and dropped this bombshell.

'That's not true!' But my insides had already been churning.

'What's going on?' Dad had asked when he had entered the kitchen. 'Why are you looking at me like I murdered someone?'

'Dad—did you cheat on Mom?'

His face had fallen.

'Peanut—'

'So you did?'

'Peter, I swear to God, if you don't tell her the truth...'

'It was years ago, we were both unhappy in our marriage, and we both made some bad decisions.'

'Give me a fucking straight answer: did you cheat on Mom, yes or no? I need to hear it from you.'

He had taken a deep breath, looked at Mom, then back at me.

'Yes.'

'I can't believe you! You told me you got a divorce because Mom cheated on you!'

'You what? You told her that?'

'I never used these words.'

'Dad, stop! You led me to believe that.'

'Peter, you knew—you knew she had this misconception—and you never corrected her?'

'I was—I know.'

'She was only thirteen! Do you have any idea what you did?'

'Mom, I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so, so sorry.'

'It's okay, baby. I love you. It's okay.'

'No, it's not.'

'Peanut—'

'Don't fucking touch me right now!'

'Peanut, I'm sorry. I can say it a hundred times, or a thousand: I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say.'

'Don't say anything, Dad. You're good at that.'

I wanted to talk to someone, but the risk of being rejected was not one I was willing to take, so I took off one glove and dialed my only safe bet, the one person who would not mind my calling at this hour on Christmas Day. As it rang, I silently begged him to pick up. On the third ring, he did.

"Grace, hey! This is a pleasant surprise." The warmth in his greeting constricted my windpipe. There were voices around him, chatting, laughing.

"Hey, I just needed to hear your voice."

Naturally, he immediately noticed something was off and the voices grew more faint as he changed rooms.

"What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

The urge to cry I had been suppressing struck me with all its might and a quiet sob escaped me.

"No," I choked and then violent sobs shook my body, forcing me to sit down on a concrete pillar on the sidewalk in the quiet suburban street.

Liam waited patiently for me to calm down, making soothing 'shhhh' sounds, and assured me repeatedly that it'd be alright, whatever it was. I didn't know for how long I just had my phone pressed to my ear while shaking from the tempest of emotions inside me. When the most brutal ripples had faded, he instructed me to breathe in and out evenly, which I followed as well as I could.

"Are you okay to talk?" His voice was steady, he was trying to steady me, but I could hear the worry in every syllable.

Before answering, I took a last deep breath. "I think so," I croaked, then paused for another moment to collect myself. "Everything's—My mom and my dad—"

Where should I start? Probably employing skills from his anthropology class this semester, Liam attempted the guided interview technique.

"Are they fighting? You said they normally get along well, right?"

"Yes. I mean, no. They don't. They rarely speak."

"I see. I must have misunderstood."

"You didn't." I sniffled. "The story is not quite what I told you." Please don't be mad.

But he remained calm, the concern not leaving his voice. "Okay." When I didn't speak for a long time, he continued: "What happened tonight?"

"It's—First you have to know the reason my parents divorced back then was that my mom cheated on my dad."

"Wow," he said when he realized I was waiting for a reaction from him.

"Yeah. I've been furious at my mom ever since. I've felt she destroyed our family, betrayed my dad, and, on top of all, got to be the one to walk away from it all. My sister was only eight and went with her, she didn't know what had truly happened, and my mom didn't know I had found out."

"How did you find out, anyway?"

Another breath. "I screamed and cried and howled at my dad, and when he defended my mom, I blamed him and pushed him until he told me. He hadn't wanted me to know, and he had asked me not to tell my sister. So I had this huge secret and it was eating at me and I couldn't talk about it with anyone."

"Sounds like a heavy weight to shoulder for a... what, 13-year-old?"

"It was. And then tonight, my mom told me she wants to remarry and I snapped. I don't know why, it doesn't concern me. But it's not fair. It's so unfair."

"Okay, she told you she wants to remarry. What happened next?"

I lightly kicked at a small pile of snow with my boot, watching it tumble and a mini avalanche slid onto the sidewalk a couple of inches away.

"I yelled at her whether she'd be able to be faithful this time."

When Liam said nothing, anxiety rose up in me and I talked faster.

"I know, I'm terrible. But it's not fair. Everyone gets to walk away from this affair—these affairs, and pretend they never happened when they did, and it's not right. It's not okay. Because everyone doesn't get to walk away, okay? It's so selfish."

To prevent me from hyperventilating, Liam rose to speak when I had to catch my breath. "You tell me if I'm right: it sounds like you're upset because they've both moved on from their infidelities and you were never given the chance to heal because they never talked to you about their split. What do you think?"

I was quiet for a moment, looking up into the almost hypnotizing snow flurry and tried to take deep breaths. "I think that sounds pretty spot-on. Are you sure you're not a psych major?"

He chuckled.

The flakes were so heavy they dropped to the ground swiftly and were only whirled around by the occasional blast of wind deterring them from their natural route. The world was blanketed in white and it was as quiet as it could only be on Christmas Eve in the midst of a minor blizzard. The only sounds interrupting the eerie peacefulness were car engines in the distance every now and then and the whoosh of the squally wind as it made its rounds through the small Massachusetts sub-suburb.

Since the beginning of our phone call, his voice had gone from distraught to calm to now strained. "You have no idea how much I wish I could be there to hold you right now."

"I wish you could, too." I sniffled and wiped a tear from my face with the back of my gloved hand.

A crow's wings flapped, then the animal perched onto the Christmas wreath attached to the streetlamp and cast its shadow onto the sidewalk in front of me.

"Thank you for calling, for trusting me with this."

"Thanks for picking up."

"Anytime, you know that. And Grace? That thing with your parents, it will be okay."

It didn't make me feel better, but I didn't expect anything could at the moment. My butt was frozen at that point, and the bitter cold was seeping into every pore of my body.

"Thanks. I think I'd better head back, I'm turning into an icicle."

"Oh my gosh, you're outside? Yes, Grace, hurry back inside! I like you alive."

"Thanks again, Liam."

"You're welcome."

"I'll talk to you soon. Bye."

"Bye, I—I can't wait to see you again."

When I hung up, I first wiped the tears from my face. Then I straightened my back, rose, and took a deep breath before I walked back in the direction from which I had come. After only a couple of yards, however, Grampa's SUV rolled down the street and came to a stop on the other side of the road. Using the little button at the side of the door, he cranked open the window and stuck out his elbow.

"Hiya, young lady. What unruly weather to be out on a hike. Would you like a ride? I promise you can trust me."

I hesitated for a second. The extra half hour back to the house would have been welcome to collect my thoughts and clear my head, but Grampa and Liam weren't wrong. It was freezing and no weather to make my way back over the slippery sidewalks or through the snowed-in park. One more longing glance down the street was all my eyes were allowed before I crossed the dirty-white street, hopped into the car, and fastened my seatbelt.

"Where to?" asked Grampa. "Do you even have money for the fare?"

"Grampa, please, I'm not in the mood."

His smile disappeared, but he nodded and shifted the van into Drive. For a while we took backroads, if they could be called backroads in a suburban community, anyway. Grampa drove carefully and slowly, but from inside the car the snowflakes looked like they were in a reckless race toward the windshield, unperturbed by the dizzying speed. Looking at the white flurry on gray background, I emptied my brain and calmed down slowly. Just specks of white hitting the glass and immediately being pushed aside by the steady windshield wipers working at a relentless rhythm.

"We're going to have to go back at some point," he reminded me after some time.

"Is it true?"

"Didn't you ask your dad?"

"He said yes."

"Then there you go."

We fell silent again. I knew what I wanted to ask him, but didn't know if I wanted to hear the answer.

"Did you know about this?" I eventually whispered.

He was quiet for a couple of seconds. "Yes. But what does it matter, Peanut?"

"Oh my God, how could you not tell me?"

"It never came up," he offered. "Plus, it's not my story to tell."

"It became your story to tell as soon as Dad didn't! Someone had to tell the story."

"I didn't know you didn't know, Peanut. Otherwise I would have made your dad tell you."

"I can't believe he did this to me!"

"He didn't do this to you," he said sternly.

"He lied to me!"

"And he shouldn't have, but Grace: he didn't do this to you."

"Stop defending him!"

My fist banged against the inside of the car door. The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the psychological pain that threatened to rip me apart. One was guaranteed to heal, the other was still up in the air.

"He's my son."

Now my voice rose to a scream, inappropriately loud for the small space. "And I'm your granddaughter!" Slowly, I slumped down in the heated car seat, tears now flowing from my eyes at a steady pace. The sound emanating from my throat resembled a beaten dog more than a person. "Goddamnit, Grampa."

For the second time today, the news was sinking in. Grampa spoke words, but I couldn't make sense of them. My chest was heavy and I had to take slow breaths to get enough oxygen. I was on the brink of a panic attack and tried to breathe more evenly while fixing my gaze back on the fat flakes outside, wishing their soothing effect would set in again.

"I can't believe I've been blaming Mom." I choked up.

"How do you feel about her right now?"

"How could he lie to me for so long?"

"I guess he couldn't admit what had happened, his part in it, maybe not even to himself, and definitely not to you. You mean everything to him."

"I can't believe he did this to me," I stammered.

"Fine then, ignore everything I say."