No one had asked me.

No: “Are you using the house that weekend?”

No: “Would it be okay if we…”

Just: stock the fridge.

I typed a single word:

No.

The typing bubbles flickered on her end. Disappeared. Reappeared. Vanished again. She liked theatrics. Then came the reply:

Lol. We’re coming anyway. What’re you gonna do—call the HOA?

I flipped my phone face down like it might burn me.

“Everything okay?” Milo mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“Yeah,” I said automatically. “Just family stuff.”

She nodded. She’d heard that line before.

I’m Bella Carter. Forty-two. Neurosurgeon. Jacksonville, Florida. The one they page when seconds matter. The one who can stand over exposed brain tissue for hours without trembling. And somehow, still the woman who froze when her family pushed too hard.

Ethan walked in from the garage with a laundry bag slung over his shoulder. One look and he knew.

“Paige?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

Milo wasn’t mine by blood, nor Ethan’s. The first time I saw her, she was three, hiding behind Ethan’s leg at a barbecue, peeking out like the world was something she wasn’t sure she trusted. Her biological mother had already disappeared into chaos. Ethan had been raising her alone.

I married him when Milo was five, adopted her that same year. Step didn’t feel right—it implied an expiration date. The judge smiled at me. “Congratulations, Dr. Carter.” As if earning a medical degree somehow qualified me to be her mother.

My family never quite knew how to place Milo. Not overt cruelty. Just subtle omissions.

At Christmas: embroidered stockings for Mark’s kids, Paige’s kids. A plain red one “found last minute” for Milo.

At my dad’s seventieth birthday: grandchildren introduced as “Mark’s three, Paige’s two, and this is… Milo.”