Chapter 3 - The Domino’s Gift Card
The week before Thanksgiving, Paige had texted me to ask what specific dishes I was bringing to Mom’s house.
“Sweet potatoes and homemade dinner rolls,” I had replied.
She sent back a cheerful red heart emoji. Two days later, Mom called to ask whether ten-year-old Theo still liked roasted turkey breast. Nothing in any of those conversations remotely suggested that my children were suddenly persona non grata in our family home.
On Thanksgiving morning, Theo happily watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV while Norah sat at the kitchen counter carefully crafting little handwritten place cards for the dinner table. She had specifically decorated Aunt Paige’s place card with delicate blue flowers because she knew Aunt Paige loved the color blue. Around eleven o’clock, we packed up our dishes and drove over to Mom’s townhouse because Mom had explicitly asked me to arrive early to help her carry heavy casseroles and serving platters out to Paige’s larger house nearby.
Mom was already fully dressed, her hair professionally styled, her casseroles wrapped tightly in foil, and her leather purse waiting neatly by the front door. Paige arrived ten minutes later, stepping into the hallway with a brisk, hurried energy. She took off her designer coat, looked directly past me, and saw my two children standing near the coat rack.
Then she turned her sharp gaze onto me, her eyebrows drawing together in visible irritation.
"Wait. You actually brought them?" she asked, her voice dropping into a tone of cold disbelief.
For a fraction of a second, my brain refused to process her meaning. I genuinely thought she was making some bizarre, tasteless joke.
"They’re my children, Paige. Where else would they be?" I said, smiling faintly.
"I thought Mom talked to you about this."
I glanced over at my mother. Mom suddenly became intensely, desperately interested in examining a roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil on the kitchen island.
"Talked to me about what?" I asked, my voice tightening.
Paige let out a dramatic, long-suffering exhale, as if dealing with a profoundly dense subordinate. "We simply don't have room for your boy and girl this year, Kristen."
That specific phrasing—your boy and girl—still makes my stomach churn with cold fury. Not Theo and Norah. Not her own flesh-and-blood niece and nephew. Just an inconvenient, alien pair of obstacles labeled your boy and girl.
"They’re too noisy and unruly," Paige continued, crossing her arms over her expensive cashmere sweater. "They completely ruined the vibe last year, and I am not dealing with that level of stress again."
Theo was standing about six feet behind me, holding the paper turkey he had proudly made at school with both hands. His small shoulders instantly hitched upward, his posture collapsing inward. Children don't need to understand every complex adult nuance to instantly recognize the sharp, icy sting of outright rejection.
"What vibe?" I asked, taking a slow, deliberate step forward.
"Kristen, please don’t make this into a whole dramatic thing right now," Paige snapped, looking around nervously.
"I am asking you a direct question. What vibe?"
Paige glanced frantically toward Mom for backup. "The house was chaotic last year, okay? It wasn't relaxing."
"There were two well-behaved children present, Paige."
"There was way too much going on. People were trying to talk, and—"
"There was a cat eating a stick of butter," Norah whispered from behind me, her voice trembling slightly.
Paige completely ignored her niece, refusing to even look down. Instead, she dropped the real bombshell. She casually mentioned that several important high-end real estate clients and local business associates would be stopping by her house later that afternoon for holiday drinks and networking.
Suddenly, the entire puzzle clicked into place. Thanksgiving wasn't simply a family gathering anymore; Paige had secretly converted it into an impromptu corporate networking mixer. My children simply did not match the sterile, high-end aesthetic she wanted to project to her prospective clients.
Without missing a beat, Paige reached into her leather handbag, pulled out a white envelope, and slid it across the polished granite kitchen island toward me, exactly as if she were handing a customer service tip to an annoying waiter.
"I bought you this," she said coldly.
May you like
I looked inside the envelope. It contained a physical $40 Domino’s pizza gift card.
"For the kids," Paige explained, as if offering a generous charity donation. "You guys can order pizza or something at home and have your own little party."
