Sunday dinner felt like we'd all won the lottery and then forgot to cash the check. Warm food. Warm people. No money panic. No weird tension. Just laughter and steam rising from real mashed potatoes that weren't powdered out of a fucking box.
Mom was radiant—like glowy pregnant-woman radiant but without the baby, thank God—talking about her new Mercedes like it was a spaceship that'd landed just for her.
Sarah kept pulling out her sketchbook to draw another version of her future bedroom that somehow always ended up looking like it belonged to a Disney villainous princess, and me? I was just vibing.
Letting the moment be soft. Like, actually soft. Not survival-mode soft. Not 'pretend this is fine' soft. Just... okay.
For the first time in forever, we weren't eating while mentally rationing how many bites of chicken we could afford. Nobody was budgeting oxygen. Nobody was crying in the bathroom after checking the bank app. Just carbs and serotonin. Beautiful.
