I watch as the world spins.

Lisa is setting up the dining table, a pudgy baby with pink cheeks resting on her hip. My niece has her mothers eyes; big, blue and inquisitive, and her father’s black hair, growing in tufts on the top of her soft skull.

They asked me to hold her, once. I kept thinking about her unformed bones- that self destruct button atop her head- that I would somehow find a way to push. Or I would hold her wrong, and her skin would pinch, and she would cry, and I would get it in my head that somehow she knew that I wasn’t equipped for something like this. That I wasn’t designed to have a baby, or family at all, and my bi-annual appearances at family events weren’t fooling anybody.

“Can you pass me the tongs, please?” Lisa asks, her free hand outstretched behind her as she coos to the baby. “Babe? The tongs?”

My brother-in-law slinks past me into the kitchen, and I’m engulfed in his beer and cigarette breath, “No worries.”

John makes his way to the dining table, placing the tongs carelessly on the wooden top. Predictably, Lisa grabs the tongs and puts them in a perfectly spaced line with the wooden spoon and the carving knife already laid out.

There’s four places set, each adorned with personalised plates on top of vintage doilys; even the babies high chair, with its white legs wrapped with green and red tinsel, has its own matching set.

I used to have one of those plates. Our mother had made them herself and we each glazed our own. I remember thinking Lisa’s was so much better than mine, with her name written in perfect cursive and little cartoon elves that looked like they jumped from a children’s movie drawn around the rim. Mine was a mess of block letters and poorly drawn Christmas trees, the type of thing my mother would lie about and say ‘has a lot of potential’, all while displaying Lisa’s as though it belonged in a museum and hiding mine at the bottom of the cupboard.

Now it lies in pieces somewhere, shrapnel of it still crushed underneath the dining room rug. Remnants of a fight long forgotten by everyone else and rotting within me.

I watch as John takes baby Susie out of Lisa’s arm, and hoists her into the air above his head. He blows raspberries against her stomach, and her face lights up and she giggles and giggles as though it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened. Susie smacks around her fathers head, pulling at strands of hair and scratching the lines around his eyes- completely free of the concept of malice or consequence.

I watch a little girl, who’s whole world is the people in front of her. Who’s yet to taste the bitterness of the outside air, the sour curdles of rejection, the sweet familiarity of loneliness.

Who doesn’t yet have that sinking feeling in her gut, that if she were to slip away no one would feel her absence.

“Don’t get her too excited before dinner!” Lisa scolds.

I say, “Yes, because god forbid anyone actually has fun on Christmas Day,” but it goes unheard.

My father takes his seat at the head of the table, rubbing his liver-spotted hands together at the sight of the feast before him. My mother sits diagonally from him, prim and proper in every way, preparing for everyone to sit down so she can start saying Grace. I check to make sure that there’s still light in her eyes. She sees right through me, and I realise that she looks younger than she ever has.

Lisa is next to take her seat. Quickly followed by baby Susie, as John tucks her into her high chair so he can start carving the Christmas ham.

Four adult sized pieces are placed on each adult sized plate. Tiny chunks are sliced and dropped onto Susie’s.

My mother takes every ones hands and says her Grace. If I imagine hard enough, I can almost feel the softness of her palm against mine again; the slickness of her baby pink nail polish as I stroke her thumbnail the way I used to. I can feel our elbows bump together, as they did every Christmas, as we both dug into whatever roast was on that year.

I wonder if she thinks about it too.

They each devour their first servings within minutes, and serve themselves another.

No one cries, no one argues, no one really speaks at all.

I watch as the world still spins.

I erased myself from the frame, and the scene continues to play out as though I was never scripted into it.

No one leaves the porch light on anymore. No one listens to old voicemails, just to hear me say their name.

There is no place for me at the table.