Now the room was voting on whether I deserved to remain in it.

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could force any words past my throat, my uncle Silas stood up so quickly his chair scraped loudly across the hardwood.

“That’s enough,” he said, voice sharp, shaking with fury. “It’s Christmas. For God’s sake.”

For one brief second, I felt something like relief. Like someone had reached into the water and grabbed my wrist when I was sinking.

But the storm didn’t stop. It just shifted.

Heavy footsteps sounded from the hallway, slow and measured. Grandpa Everett entered the room with the same calm authority he’d always carried—straight posture, gray hair neatly combed, eyes that missed nothing even at seventy-eight. He scanned the raised hands like he was taking attendance.

Silas turned toward him, chest heaving.

“Dad,” Silas said. “You can’t be serious.”

Grandpa didn’t look at Silas at first. He looked at the room. Then, in a tone so flat it felt like a slap, he said, “They’re right.”

The words hit me like something thrown.

For a moment, the air left my lungs. Ivy’s hand found mine and squeezed so hard it hurt. Hazel’s drawing crinkled in the gift bag as she clutched it tighter.

Grandpa’s gaze finally landed on me. There was something in his eyes that wasn’t cruelty. It wasn’t approval either. It was… complicated. Like he was holding something back. Like he was watching for something.

Then he looked away again, back to the room, and said, “We’ll take a vote.”
My brain stuttered. I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to.

“If you want Nolan out of this party,” Grandpa said, voice rising, “raise your hand.”

The hands shot up. Thirty of them. A forest of judgment.

Only two stayed down.

My uncle Silas’s face turned red with rage. He grabbed Aunt Lillian’s hand and marched toward the door like he had finally decided peace was no longer worth the price.

As he passed Grandpa, Silas paused. He leaned close and said, in a voice that carried like a knife in quiet air, “I’m ashamed of you.”

Everyone heard it. Even the ones who pretended not to.

Then Silas moved toward me, put a steady hand on my shoulder, and said, “Let’s go, Nolan. These people don’t deserve to be called family.”

My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, but I moved. Ivy moved. Hazel shuffled beside us, still clutching her gift bag like she thought the drawing could fix whatever was happening.

I turned my head once, just once, and looked at the raised hands again. My father’s. Trent’s. Warren’s. Edgar’s. My relatives’ hands hanging in the air like they were offering something to the ceiling.

I realized, in that sick instant, that the vote hadn’t been about my job. Not really.

It was about permission.

Permission to treat me as less.

Permission to make it official.

We were almost at the front door when Grandpa’s voice exploded behind us.

“Stop.”

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