I told myself I was protecting him. That it was only one dinner and he was busy with finals and there was no point in making him feel unwanted when the decision was already made. Maybe that was part of it, but if I’m honest, there was another reason: I didn’t want to see his face when I told him his uncle—my brother—had tried to uninvite him from Christmas Eve.
Instead, we ate leftover pizza on wax paper plates at the kitchen table, our small house in Leslieville humming softly around us—fridge buzzing, radiator ticking, the distant hiss of streetcars in the night.
“Uncle Graham’s place is going to be fancy as hell, right?” Ethan said through a mouthful of pepperoni. He swallowed and brushed crumbs off his thrift-store T-shirt. “Remember last year they had that ice sculpture? The swan? That was wild. Who even thinks ‘You know what this party needs? A bird made of frozen water.’”
“I remember,” I said, taking a bite that tasted suddenly like cardboard. Last year I’d thought the swan was ridiculous and excessive, sure, but I’d also thought, in some secret, guilty place, that it was kind of impressive. Now all I could picture was Patricia’s tight smile and Graham’s rising stress as some small imperfection threatened the “aesthetic.”
“Do you think Aunt Patricia will like the gift I got her?” Ethan asked. “I know she’s into, like, fancy things, so I thought the soap set would be good. It’s French. It has that accent on the box and everything.”
He laughed at himself, but his eyes were hopeful.
I imagined Patricia opening the gift, smiling her fake smile, setting it aside without a word. The keychain flashed through my memory—a Christmas two years ago when she’d handed Ethan a gas-station keychain in a crumpled gift bag while Madison and Carter unwrapped the latest iPhones. I’d told myself then that she’d simply misjudged, that she hadn’t understood. That I was imagining the slight.
“She’ll love it, buddy,” I said.
He nodded, satisfied, and started telling me about an algorithm his professor had gone over that afternoon. I listened, not understanding all of it, but enjoying the way his hands moved when he spoke, the up-and-down of his voice. At one point he stood up to illustrate a concept using salt shakers and napkins. I laughed and shook my head, and the specter of Patricia and her clients receded to the edges of my mind like a shadow waiting for the right light.
Christmas Eve was cold and clear. The kind of Ontario cold that made the air feel almost metallic in your lungs. By four-thirty, the sky already had that bruised, early-winter darkness. Ethan carried the carefully wrapped gifts to the car—Patricia’s soap set, something Carter would like (a video game I’d checked with Graham about), jewelry for Madison that Ethan had chosen himself, and a bottle of decent wine for Graham and Patricia that had cost more than I wanted to spend.
He’d dressed up. That alone should have told me how much it mattered to him. The secondhand button-down shirt he’d found at a thrift store, ironed so crisply that I’d joked we could use it as a cutting board. The only nice pair of slacks he owned, slightly too short at the ankle but passable. He’d even borrowed my leather belt.
“How do I look?” he asked, spinning in the hallway like he had when he was six and tried on his first little suit for Rebecca’s cousin’s wedding.
“Like a guy who’s going to make everyone else at the table feel underdressed,” I said.
He rolled his eyes, but I saw the way his shoulders relaxed. “You’re a dad, you have to say that.”
“I’m legally obligated,” I agreed.
We got into my ancient Honda Civic, the engine coughing a protest before it turned over. The heater wheezed lukewarm air as we pulled away from the curb. Ethan fiddled with the radio until he found a station playing Christmas songs. We listened to Bing Crosby croon about white Christmases as we wound our way north, the city lights thinning and then vanishing, replaced by snow-covered fields and dark lines of trees.
I’d meant to tell him then. Somewhere between the Don Valley Parkway and Highway 400, I’d planned to say, “Listen, Ethan, about tonight…” But every time I opened my mouth, I saw his excited face, heard him asking again if his aunt would like her gift. The words shrank back down into my chest.
Instead, we talked about his exams. About the class he’d thought he’d bombed and ended up getting an A in. About the internship offers.
“They said I could pick between the three,” he said, his voice caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. “Like, who does that? I’m leaning toward Google, I think. The Waterloo office is supposed to be amazing. But the Microsoft offer is in Seattle and—”
“Go where you’ll learn the most,” I said, hands tight on the wheel. “The rest will follow.”
He nodded, staring out at the snowbanks racing by. “Feels weird, you know? To have options.”
“You earned those options,” I said. “They’re not charity. They’re the result of every hour you spent with your nose in a textbook while your friends were out.”
He smiled, but he didn’t argue, which meant he believed me at least a little.
As we got closer to Muskoka, the houses grew larger and farther apart, lights twinkling from huge windows like something out of a glossy magazine. Graham and Patricia’s place sat at the end of a long, curving driveway lined with carefully trimmed evergreens wrapped in white lights. The house itself rose up out of the snow—glass and stone and metal—six thousand square feet of architectural ego perched above a frozen lake.
“Whoa,” Ethan breathed, pressing a hand to the window. “I forgot how big it was.”
“Yeah,” I said, pulling up behind a gleaming Tesla. “Big.”
The driveway was already sprinkled with cars. BMWs and Mercedes and one Bentley so polished it reflected the tree lights like a mirror. I eased my Honda in between a Porsche and an SUV so shiny it looked like it had just rolled out of a commercial.
Ethan unbuckled and twisted around to grab the gifts. “We’re early,” he said, checking his phone. “It’s only five-thirty.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Maybe we can help set up.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Aunt Patricia always likes everything perfect. We can, like, help fluff napkins or something.”
That word—perfect—scraped along my nerves. I shut off the engine and got out, my boots crunching on the salted stone driveway. The winter air here was different—quieter somehow, muffled by snow and distance.
We walked up to the towering front door, its frosted glass panels glowing with soft, golden light from within. I could hear music—Bing again, because apparently he’d soundtracked the whole holiday season—and the indistinct roar of conversation and laughter.
I rang the bell.
Footsteps approached on the other side. A moment later, the door swung open.
Patricia stood there, framed by the warm light like she was posing for a photograph. Her dress clung to her in a way that said it had not come off any department store rack. Diamonds glittered at her throat and ears, catching tiny stars of light from the chandelier behind her. Her blond hair was twisted into some kind of elegant knot that probably had a French name.
“Michael,” she said. “You’re early.”
It wasn’t a greeting. It was a mild rebuke dressed in silk. Her gaze flicked to Ethan, taking in his pressed shirt, his carefully combed hair, the wrapped gifts in his arms. Her smile didn’t move. Not really.
“We thought we could help set up,” I said. “If you needed anything.”
“Everything’s already done.” She said it with the satisfied finality of someone announcing a completed work of art. “The caterers are in the kitchen, the photographer’s setting up in the living room. We’re quite all right.”
Her eyes slid back to Ethan. They lingered for a moment on his shirt. I saw the subtle downturn at the corner of her mouth, the evaluation being made and recorded.
“Hi, Aunt Patricia,” Ethan said brightly, shifting the gifts to one arm so he could offer the other for a half-hug. “Merry Christmas.”
She didn’t take the hug. Instead, she took a delicate step backward as if avoiding the edge of a puddle.
“Ethan,” she said. “I see you’ve come straight from work.”
He blinked. “Uh, yeah. I had the afternoon shift. I went home to shower, though. And change.”
“Yes, of course you did.” Her nose wrinkled just slightly. “Even so, the smell does tend to linger, doesn’t it? Coffee is so…pervasive.”
I smelled nothing but cold air and faint cologne. I opened my mouth, but she was already continuing.
“We have several guests with allergies,” she said. “Very particular sensitivities. It would be such a shame if anyone started sneezing during dinner. Ethan, why don’t you wait in the garage for a little while? Just until everyone’s arrived and settled.”
Beside me, Ethan’s body went still. I felt rather than saw the way his breath hitched.
“The garage?” he repeated.
“It’s heated,” Patricia said quickly, as if she were offering the Ritz. “There’s a chair out there. It’s only for twenty minutes or so, just while people are coming in. First impressions, you understand.”
“Patricia—” I started.
“It’s fine, Dad,” Ethan said, his voice too fast. Too light. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
I turned to him. His smile was lopsided, the way it got when he was lying. “You don’t have to—”
“Please,” he said under his breath, eyes darting to Patricia. “I don’t want to cause problems.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides. Every instinct in me screamed to just grab him by the sleeve, march back to the car, and drive off into the dark. But I had spent the better part of a decade trying to keep things smooth with my only remaining sibling, convincing myself that swallowing small indignities was better than starting wars we couldn’t afford.
“I’ll be right back,” I said to Ethan, my voice low. “I’m just going to talk to your uncle.”
He forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll, uh, go make friends with the Range Rover.”
Patricia watched him step down off the front porch, her expression faintly relieved. “Graham’s in the study,” she said once he was out of earshot. “Second door on the left off the main hall.”
“You didn’t have to—” I began.
“Michael,” she interrupted, her voice dipped in that patronizing patience she used when explaining things to waiters. “Please try to understand. Tonight is very important. The Hendersons are coming. They’re considering investing several million in my new lakefront development. We can’t have anything…distracting them.”
“Ethan is not a distraction,” I said. “He’s your nephew.”
She smiled then. A small, tight smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “And I’m sure he’ll be perfectly charming once everyone’s here and settled. There’s no need to make this into a thing. Why don’t you go talk to Graham? I still have a few last-minute details to attend to.”
She turned away without waiting for my answer, already moving toward the sound of clinking glasses and laughter coming from deeper in the house.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, torn between the warm glow of the party and the dark line of the driveway where I could just see the faint shape of the garage. Then I stepped inside, my boots sinking into a Persian rug that probably cost more than my car, and went to find my brother.
Graham’s study was tucked off a side hallway lined with black-and-white photographs of sailboats and cityscapes. Real, framed art, not the mass-printed stuff I bought at IKEA when Ethan was twelve and decided our walls needed “personality.”
The door was ajar. I pushed it open to find Graham standing by the window, phone pressed to his ear. He wore a navy suit that fit him like he’d been poured into it. He caught my eye, lifted a finger in the universal “just a sec” gesture, and turned away to finish his call.
I waited, my gaze drifting over the room. Dark wood shelves lined with leather-bound books and gleaming awards. A desk that looked like it had never seen a stray coffee ring. On one wall, a gallery of framed photos: Graham and Patricia at some charity gala, both of them tanned and glowing; Graham holding a golf trophy; Madison posing by a new car; the four of them on a yacht, hair whipped by salt wind, smiles wide and easy.
There were no photos of Ethan.
No photo of Rebecca, who had once called Graham her “almost-brother,” the three of us thick as thieves in university. No picture of our parents, who’d died within eleven months of each other, leaving us to divide their house, their possessions, their ghosts.
A familiar ache threaded through my chest.
“Okay, talk soon,” Graham said finally into the phone. He ended the call and set the device down on his desk carefully, like it might break if he moved too quickly. Then he turned to me.
“Michael.” He smiled, stepping forward and pulling me into a quick hug. He smelled faintly of cologne and something expensive I couldn’t name. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Patricia sent Ethan to the garage,” I said, too blunt for small talk. Subtlety had never been my strength.
Graham’s smile faltered. “It’s just for a few minutes,” he said. “She’s worried about—”
“The smell,” I said. “Right. Allergies.”
He winced. “You know how she gets,” he said apologetically. “She’s been on edge for days. This dinner is a big deal.”
“He’s twenty, Graham. He’s not a toddler covered in jam.”
“I know that,” he said quickly. “And I tried to talk her out of it, I swear. But she’s…when she has an image in her head of how something should go, it’s hard to move her.”
“You’re allowed to say ‘impossible,’” I replied.
He chuckled, but it was weak. “Look, it’s just one night. You know I love Ethan.”
“Do you?” The question slipped out before I could stop it, surprising us both.
Graham took a breath. “That’s not fair.”
“What isn’t fair,” I said, keeping my voice low even though anger buzzed under my skin, “is making my kid sit in a garage like some delivery guy until your important guests arrive. What isn’t fair is treating him like an embarrassment because he works for a living.”
Graham ran a hand through his hair, messing it in a way Patricia would undoubtedly fuss over later. “He works at a coffee shop,” he said, like he was bracing himself.
“Yeah. And?” I prompted.
“And Patricia worries that if it comes up, people will make assumptions,” he said. “These are old-money types, Mike. They equate status with…with everything. They might not see how smart he is, how driven.”
“So your solution is to hide him?” I asked. “To confirm that he’s something to be ashamed of?”
“I’m not ashamed of him,” Graham said, his voice rising for the first time. “I’m proud of him. You know that. I brag about him all the time. ‘My nephew, the genius at U of T.’ But you know Patricia. She’s terrified someone’s going to look down on her. On us. If they think we’re…” He floundered for the word.
“Ordinary?” I supplied.
He didn’t answer.
I looked at him then—really looked at him. At my big brother who had once taught me how to ride a bike by running beside me for blocks until he was wheezing, at the man who’d stood next to me at Rebecca’s funeral, his hand anchored at the back of my neck so I wouldn’t float away.
