My husband told me I wasn't welcome at the family Christmas I was paying for. He still expected me to cover the cabin's rent, heating, and the presents he would carry through its door. When I asked whether he would stay home with me, he said, "They're my family." Twelve days before Christmas, I was sitting on our living room floor, wrapping a cashmere coat for his mother. Aaron stood beside the sofa with the cabin's grocery list open on his phone. "Mom thinks it would be better if you sat this Christmas out." The scissors stopped halfway through the ribbon. "What?" "Just this year. Things have been tense, and she'd like a few days without any arguments." I looked at the coat across my knees. His mother had sent me the link herself, along with her size and a reminder that the sale ended Friday. "What arguments?" Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. "You know how it gets when you start talking about money." The last time I had mentioned money, I had asked why the cabin needed another set of dining chairs when I had bought six the previous spring. His mother had stopped speaking to me for the rest of lunch. Now I was being told to spend Christmas alone because I had asked a question about chairs. "Then we'll stay here," I said. "I'll cancel the grocery order. We can have Christmas at home." He looked toward the kitchen. I waited for him to agree. Even then, with the ribbon cutting into my fingers, I expected that much from my husband. "I'm still going, Nora." "Without me?" "They're my family." I had heard him say those words hundreds of times. Usually, they explained a late dinner, an unexpected expense, another Sunday given away. I had never heard them used to explain why I should be left behind at Christmas. We had been married for seven years. The cabin was a three-bedroom rental beside a lake, two hours north of the city. His mother held the lease. The family used it for summer weekends, birthdays, and every Christmas since our second year together. When Aaron's work slowed down, I began covering the rent myself. Then the maintenance bills started coming to me too. Eighteen hundred dollars a month for the rent. Another four hundred for maintenance, with winter fuel and the furnace check included during the cold months. At first, Aaron thanked me every time. Eventually, he only asked whether I had paid yet. December's rent had cleared my account three days earlier. "I thought I was your family too," I said. "You are. You don't have to turn this into a choice between you and my parents." "You just told me to stay home while you spend Christmas with them. What would you call it?" He exhaled impatiently. "It's four days. We live together the rest of the year." I lowered the coat into its box. For weeks, I had pictured the drive there. Aaron beside me, the car full of presents, the last hour of the road winding between snow-covered trees. I had saved three days of vacation for it. He hadn't asked about those days. He hadn't asked whether I had somewhere else to go. "Did you tell your mother you wanted me there?" "I told her you'd be hurt." "That wasn't what I asked." He picked up the empty wrapping-paper tube. "I'll talk to her again on Sunday. Can we leave it until then?" I wanted to believe that meant something. After seven years, it was humiliating how quickly I could still find hope in a promise that small. Aaron went upstairs to change. I stayed on the floor until my knees began to ache. The coat box was still open. Inside the lid, I had tucked the card I bought the week before. For Mom, with love from both of us. I took it out. A message arrived from Aaron while I was folding the unused ribbon. He had sent the grocery list. Below it, he wrote, Mom also needs the clean sheets and the Christmas tablecloth. Can you have everything ready before we leave?