Every time I step inside Dad’s mansion, I remember just how massive it is—how I grew up here, how it used to feel like home, and how, sometimes, it still does.
The Christmas tree in the middle of the living room is ridiculous. Way too big, like something out of a movie, stretching all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. It’s the kind of tree that would have swallowed Mom’s living room whole. I step back, eyeing the ornaments I just hung, and then glance at Joel. He’s grinning like he just won the lottery. He’s the reason we’re celebrating Christmas here in the first place.
At first, when Joel asked us to have Christmas here, a thought crept in. It almost felt like my parents were divorced. Like we were shuffling between two separate lives, two separate homes, like kids caught in the middl
