Addison had stonewalled the buyer about the holiday, maybe because it was the last thing he felt he could still control. “We gave up half a million dollars to these people. I will not give them my Christmas on top of it,” he fumed, venting to Claire until she could only sit and watch him pace, watch him funnel his rage—every cursing word of blame he’d held in check when he’d faced the review board and sacrificed his dream drug—onto this one symbolic day of peace.The buyers threatened to walk until he galled them into silence with a week of exorbitant rent so that his own family, Jory and Claire and he, could sleep on air mattresses and open their few presents in the middle of a bare living room. The house had looked enormous after the movers took the last of their furniture away. The blank walls echoed, the floor danced with floating ghosts of dust and hair; only the lit-up Christmas tree held any cheer—not even that, it was just a little less sad than the cheerless, vacant space that now belonged to another family.Jory watches the truck turn around and back up to the door, stomping her feet against the cold while the drivers unlock the metal doors.
