My Family Said My Wedding Was Too Far but Traveled for My Sister Until Weeks Later My Father Needed Something From Me

the working lights, and Christmas morning it was there under the tree, pink roof and green shutters, exactly as I had imagined it. My mother carried it to Madison’s nursery. Madison was one year old. She could not walk yet. My mother turned to me with a practical expression and told me I was such a big girl and that Santa had a budget and babies needed more.

I received a twelve-dollar coloring book.

The dollhouse sat in Madison’s room for eight years. I never touched it. I told myself it was fine the way children do when they have not yet been given the language for what is happening to them.