A year passed. June lives with me permanently now. Christmas in our apartment is quieter than the house we grew up in. There is no shouting disguised as tradition, no threats wrapped in rules. We bake cookies and burn them, and we laugh anyway. Doors stay open.
My parents still tell their story. I let them. I did not ruin their lives. I stopped holding their lies together.
Family is not blood. It is behavior. It is who opens the door when the night is cold, who chooses protection over pride.
That Christmas changed everything, and it should have.
