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Don’t, Annabelle. We are blessed.

She pushed the thought away before its edges could sharpen, slipped out from under the blankets, and padded barefoot into the living room. The floorboards were cold against her feet, a sharp little reminder that winter was still very much alive outside. The room glowed gently with spartan decorations and Goodwill finds, everything slightly mismatched but undeniably theirs.

The tree was small but proud. She’d hauled it home from the lot on Fourth Street the week before, dragging it onto the bus with Ethan gripping the top and Lily the bottom while Tommy carried the stand and made constant engine noises because, in Tommy’s world, the tree was clearly a car and he was steering. Its pine scent filled the room — sharp, green, and alive, mixing with the faint trace of last night’s hot chocolate.

They’d decorated it with the box of ornaments she’d been adding to, one at a time, for three years. Nothing matched. Nothing coordinated. Mostly things the kids had made or chosen themselves. Lily’s purple clay handprint ornament, Ethan’s wooden train painted bright red. The small glass bluebird she had bought herself the first Christmas she’d had her own place — the first Christmas she’d looked at a tree and thought, mine. The first Christmas without bruises or a broken heart.

Under it sat exactly three gifts.

She crouched in front of the tree, the carpet rough against her knees, and gently adjusted the placement of each one. The art book and good pencils for Tommy — found on sale, which had made her do an actual little victory lap around the apartment. The doll Lily had been asking for since September with that patient, six-year-old determination. The Nerf gun for Ethan that she was already slightly regretting, but the look on his face would be worth every foam dart she’d be pulling out of her shoes for the next six months.

She breathed in the pine again and let the quiet joy settle into her bones.

This is a good Christmas, she told herself. A really good Christmas.

The kids found the tree at six forty-seven.

She knew the exact time because she’d just settled at the little kitchen table with her first cup of coffee — still too hot, the one she always burned her tongue on anyway, the bitter warmth blooming across her palate like a small daily ritual.

Then the shrieking started. Not the afraid kind from the old days. This was the good kind — sharp gasps turning into her name called from two directions at once.

“Mom! MOM!”

“Mama look, MAMA⁠—”

Tommy appeared in the hallway in his favorite dinosaur pajamas, the ones that were too short in the legs now but he refused to let go of them. He clutched his pillow, blinking sleepily, then spotted the tree. His eyes widened. He pointed with great authority.

“Santa,” he declared.

“Santa,” she confirmed, offering him a soft, knowing smile. Her younger brother, forever carrying that childlike wonder despite a world that hadn’t always been kind to him when his differences first showed.

His whole face split into a grin so wide it looked like it might tear his head in two. He shuffled past her toward the living room. Annie stood in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed loosely over her chest, watching all three of them — her brother, her daughter, her son — bathed in the pale winter light filtering through the curtains.

Thank you, God, she thought for the hundredth time. Simple. True.

Ethan had already claimed the Nerf gun and was testing its weight with reverent little hands. Lily clutched the doll to her chest with both arms like it was something precious and breakable, rocking it gently. Tommy sat cross-legged on the floor with the sketchbook open on his lap, colored pencils arranged in his very specific order — the one she knew better than to disturb — tongue poking between his teeth in fierce concentration as he began to draw.

Annie leaned against the doorframe, took another sip of her coffee, and let the moment settle into her bones.

This is enough, she thought again, grateful. More than enough.

She was cracking eggs into a bowl, the cool shells smooth under her fingers and the faint sulfur scent rising as she worked, when the knock came.

Three sharp raps.

She frowned at the door — too early for Mrs. Kim, too confident for any neighbor. She set the bowl down, wiped her hands on the dish towel, still faintly damp from last night’s dishes, and opened the door.

Isabelle hit her like a small, beautiful shooting star.

“Merry Christmas, Annie⁠—”

Before Annie could even respond, she was wrapped in a proper hug — the kind that squished the air right out of her lungs. Isabelle smelled like expensive perfume and something warmer underneath it, like vanilla and winter air and pure energy. Annie barely had time to get her own arms up before Isabelle was already pulling back, eyes sparkling as she peered past her into the apartment with the look of a woman who had a plan and was fully committed to it.

“Kids!” Isabelle announced toward the living room, voice bright and carrying. “Get dressed! Let’s go, babies! We’re going to Uncle Bear’s.”

The response from the living room was immediate and seismic.

“UNCLE BEAR⁠—”