“Good to see you, Claire,” he said, his voice booming with a false heartiness that made my skin crawl. “And look at Lily! Growing like a weed.” I tightened my grip on my daughter’s hand. **Lily**, only eight years old and far too perceptive for her age, shrank slightly against my side. She was wearing her favorite cranberry-red dress, her hair braided with silver ribbons I’d spent forty minutes perfecting that morning. In her other hand, she clutched a paper turkey she’d made at school. It was covered in glitter and careful purple marker: *I am thankful for family.* From the kitchen, the scent of sage and roasting poultry drifted through the air, accompanied by the sharp, thin voice of our mother, **Diane**. “Dinner’s almost ready!” she called out, though there was no joy in the summons. “Try not to make this awkward, Claire. It’s a holiday.” The “awkwardness” Diane referred to was my mere existence—a divorced mother working double shifts as a pharmacist, a woman who didn’t fit into the polished, suburban narrative Mark and his wife, **Heather**, worked so hard to maintain. By five o’clock, the dining table was a spread of calculated perfection.

**Mark**, **Heather**, their two teenage sons, our mother, **Uncle Rob**, and three cousins were already seated, passing around heavy ceramic bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy. The room was loud with the clatter of silverware and the boastful stories Mark loved to tell about his roofing company’s latest contracts. Lily sat quietly beside me, her eyes tracking the bowls as they moved around the table. She was hungry, but she’d been taught to wait. I watched as Heather served everyone—plates heaping with turkey breast and cornbread stuffing.

But as the last bowl of rolls was set down, Lily’s plate remained empty.

I felt a cold prickle of unease. “Heather? I think you missed Lily.”

Heather didn’t look at me. Instead, she stood up and walked back into the kitchen. When she returned, she wasn’t carrying a porcelain plate. She was holding a scratched, dented metal dog bowl.

The room went unnervingly silent. The only sound was the metallic *clink* as she set the bowl on the placemat in front of my eight-year-old daughter. Inside were the leavings: greasy scraps of turkey skin, a clump of burned stuffing, and a single spoonful of peas swimming in a puddle of congealing gravy.

For a heartbeat, the world stopped spinning. I looked at the bowl, then at Heather, whose face was a mask of suburban innocence. Then I looked at Mark.

Mark leaned back in his chair, a slow, cruel smirk spreading across his face. He let out a loud, barking laugh that shattered the silence.