The blood drained from my face. It was barely 5:45. Dinner wasn’t supposed to be served until 5:00.

I dialed her number, my hands shaking. It went to voicemail. I dialed again. Nothing.

“Lauren?” Dr. Meredith Wilson, my closest friend and confidante at the hospital, stepped into the breakroom. She took one look at my face and closed the door. “What is it?”

“Something happened,” I whispered. My phone rang in my hand. Harper.

“Harper!” I answered, my voice pitching up. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” Her voice was terrifyingly flat. Devoid of emotion. A defense mechanism I recognized all too well. “I’m driving home.”

“Why? It’s Christmas dinner. Did you eat?”

“No.” A pause. A heavy, wet intake of breath. “There wasn’t room.”

“What do you mean, there wasn’t room?”

“Aunt Amanda brought four extra people. Colleagues of Uncle Thomas who were in town. Grandma said… she said the dining room table was full. She told me to eat at the kitchen counter.”

I gripped the edge of the table so hard my knuckles turned white. “She what?”

“I said it was fine,” Harper continued, her voice cracking now. “I tried to be helpful. But then Grandma started rearranging the seating chart. She made sure Ethan and Zoe had seats at the main table. When I walked into the kitchen with my plate… Grandma came in. She said having me in the kitchen was making it hard for the caterers to stage the food. She said it was too chaotic. She said…”

Harper began to sob. “She told me maybe I should just come back another time. When there was more room. She sent me home, Mom.”