“Lonely?” Clara stepped forward, her face tight with anger. “You sat at our table every Sunday for eleven years. Mom made you dinner. Mom bought you groceries when you couldn’t pay your electric bill. How dare you say you were lonely?”

Susan began to cry, the tears smudging her mascara. She looked so small, standing there in her ruined blue dress. But I didn’t feel sorry for her. I didn’t feel anything at all. The sister I thought I had did not exist. She had never existed.

“Keep the dress, Susan,” I said. I turned around and walked out of the house. I did not look back.

We drove home. When we got back to my house, Richard was gone. He had taken his truck and some clothes. He had left the Costco vacuum cleaner sitting in the middle of the living room floor.

I called Arthur Vance the next morning. He was a local divorce attorney who had handled my cousin’s estate years ago. He was seventy, sharp, and did not play games.

The divorce was swift. Richard tried to argue about the assets, but Clara and our other children stood by me. They made it very clear that they would testify about what they saw on the television screen. The shame was too much for Richard. He agreed to a settlement.

I got the house. I got the savings. Richard had to sell his precious bass boat to pay his own legal fees. He moved into a small apartment near the highway. Susan moved out of town three months later. I heard from a neighbor that she went to live with a cousin in Indiana. Richard did not go with her.

It has been a year since that Christmas morning. Today is Christmas again.

My house is loud. My fourteen grandchildren are running through the living room, leaving wrapping paper and cookie crumbs everywhere. The television is on, playing old claymation movies, but there are no phones synced to it. I made sure of that.

I am sitting on the sofa, watching my daughter Clara laugh as she helps her youngest open a box. Around my neck, I am wearing a small gold locket. I bought it for myself three months ago from the shop on Main Street. It is beautiful. It is real.

And the Costco vacuum? I returned it. I took the one hundred and eighty-nine dollars and spent it on a massive prime rib for today’s dinner. We are going to eat well today. And I didn’t have to cook a single thing for Richard.