“Viv. Mom told me you didn’t want to come. Both years.”
Dead silence.
Then Viv said very softly, “That’s not true, Wesley. I wanted to come. I sat here alone both Christmases. I heated up a Stouffer’s lasagna and watched Miracle on 34th Street by myself.”
I had to take a breath.
This sweet woman spent two Christmases alone because Susette told her she wasn’t welcome and then told the rest of us that Viv chose not to come.
After I hung up with Viv, I did something I probably should have done years ago.
I started making calls.
I called my cousin Tanya first.
Tanya’s 28, lives in Hoboken, and she’s always been close to our side of the family.
She’d been at Christmas last year, but not the two years before that.
When I asked why, she said Susette had told her that my family preferred smaller holidays and that we’d specifically asked her not to invite Tanya because Caleb and Lily needed a quieter environment.
“She said we asked her not to invite you?”
“Yeah. She made it sound like you guys were dealing with something and needed space. I didn’t want to pry, so I stayed away.”
“Tanya, we never said that. We didn’t even know you weren’t coming.”
“Are you serious right now?”
Then I called my cousin Drew.
Drew said he’d stopped coming three years ago because Susette told him the dinner had a couples-only policy, and since Drew was single, it might be awkward for everyone.
Drew had laughed when he told me, like it was funny.
It wasn’t funny.
I called Marcus.
Marcus said Susette had told his last girlfriend that Marcus was talking to other women, which is why they broke up right before Christmas two years ago.
Marcus had no idea Susette had said anything to her until his ex mentioned it months later.
And by then, the relationship was over.
Every call was the same pattern.
Susette controlling who came and who didn’t.
Susette telling people they weren’t welcome, then telling the rest of us they chose not to come.
She’d been editing the family like a guest list for her own private party.
And nobody ever checked with anybody else, because why would you?
If your sister-in-law says your aunt isn’t coming, you believe her.
I sat on my back porch that night after the kids were in bed and told Nadia everything.
She listened to the whole thing.
Then she said, “So, what are you going to do?”
I told her I didn’t know yet.
“Yes, you do,” she said. “You’re a caterer, Wesley. You throw events for a living. You feed 200 people at a time. You know exactly what you’re going to do.”
She was right.
I didn’t know.
But first, I needed to make sure of something.
I needed to see just how many people Susette had quietly pushed out of the family over the years.
Because if it was just Viv and Tanya and Drew and Marcus, that was bad enough.
But I had a feeling the list was longer.
I pulled up my phone and scrolled through the family contact list.
There were eight more people I hadn’t talked to in years.
I started dialing.
Over the next two weeks, I called every family member I could think of.
Aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins.
Some of them I hadn’t spoken to in three or four years.
Every conversation started the same way. A little surprised that I was calling, some catching up, and then me asking a simple question.
“Why did you stop coming to Christmas?”
The answers built a picture I wasn’t ready for.
Uncle Pete, my dad’s brother, the one who’d always been in my corner, told me he’d been at Christmas two years ago and made a comment about Susette’s seating arrangement.
Nothing dramatic, just, “Why are Wes and his kids sitting in the hallway?”
Susette pulled him aside after dinner and told him that if he was going to cause problems, she’d prefer he not come back.
Uncle Pete told her where she could put her preference, and she told Garrett to handle it.
Garrett called Pete the next day and asked him to keep the peace by sitting the next one out.
Pete hadn’t been back since.
“She told us you had a scheduling conflict,” I said.
“A scheduling conflict on Christmas,” Pete repeated flatly. “Yeah, that’s creative.”
My cousin Tanya had already confirmed her story.
Told she wasn’t welcome because we supposedly wanted quiet holidays.
Drew told it was couples only.
Marcus, whose relationship Susette had sabotaged.
Aunt Viv told she was too fragile to attend and then erased from the narrative.
But there were others.
My dad’s cousin Frank and his wife had been told two years ago that Christmas was moving to a restaurant that year and that Susette would send details.
She never did.
They assumed the dinner got canceled and made other plans.