“Fuck your parents,” Meemaw says with even more force, shooting me a look I can’t entirely parse. “I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but any parent who would ignore their child at the holidays doesn’t deserve the title.” Meemaw takes a pull from her thermos. “Some of us are born into families that deserve us and some of us have to spend our lives searching for them. You found Andrew, and that means you’re part of this family now.”

Andrew squeezes my hand, and for a moment in the snow, I let myself forget this isn’t real.

“All right, everyone!” Katherine announces when we arrive at the perfect spot for the family photo—a clearing with good light and a felled tree, with snow-covered branches framed perfectly in the background. “Coats off! Places! Places! You all know the drill! Dylan, you will not glare, so help me—”

Andrew sets up the tripod, and Katherine puts her iPhone on self-timer. I try to move to the edge of the photo—to Andrew’s far side, where I will be easy to crop out in the future.

“Ellie, sweet,” Katherine coos from behind the camera. “Get in the middle there. Yes, that’s right. Between Andrew and Jack. That’s perfect.”

I adjust myself so Andrew is on my right, his hand still secured in mine, while Jack is on my left, in a gay Christmas sweater, beaming at her mother behind the camera. “Smile, Ellie!” Katherine taps the edges of her practiced grin, and when I smile, it comes easily, effortlessly.

Afterward, I can’t stop thinking about how it will be impossible to photoshop me out of next year’s Christmas card, how I’ll always be there, in the middle of the Kim-Prescotts.

I should not be surprised that Meemaw throws the first snowball.

It starts innocuously enough. On the trek back to the cabin, Meemaw pauses for a moment under the guise of fixing her shoelaces, and before anyone truly sees what happens, a dense snowball collides with the side of Katherine’s face.

Katherine’s gloved hand wipes away the snow on her cheek. “Really, Barbara,” she says primly, before she bends down, gathers up snow, and chucks it at her mother-in-law. Then Katherine—elegant, decorous Katherine Kim—cackles.

It’s impossible to know who throws the third, fourth, or fifth snowball, because pretty soon, I’m dodging frozen missiles from all sides.