If you had asked Marianne when she was in her younger years (like, say, as a teenager) if she would ever get married, she would have replied with an emphatic no. Probed further about having children, her response would have been even more vehement—a fervent hell no. And though she didn’t technically end up doing either, she did find herself in that “setup,” as it were. Though, to be fair, when she had first started dating Julian, he wasn’t exactly quick to mention that he had a three-year-old daughter and was actually still legally married. Oh sure, he was going through the divorce proceedings, but he failed to mention to Marianne that they weren’t exactly final. Maybe he figured “why bother?” until he felt things with Marianne were going somewhere long-term. But even after six months of dating, he had still managed to evade confessing these very key details about himself: still being married and having a child with said would-be ex-wife.

In a way, maybe she should have thanked him for sparing her from the knowledge that he had a spawn. Because yes, it surely would have put her off and prevented her from having enough time to fall in love with him. And that would have been perhaps an even bigger tragedy than learning about this “lie of omission” later on. When he finally did muster up the “courage” (read: managed to drink enough alcohol) to confess on, of all days, their one-year anniversary, her reaction was just as he had always feared: rageful. Maybe this was part of why he had waited to tell her until they were up in their hotel room, which he had specially booked for the occasion (their anniversary, not his confession). That way, if she decided to break or throw anything, at least they would be in an enclosed, non-public space.

As it turned out, he was quite right to sequester her, because she did feel obliged to break some glasses, as well as some of the bottles that were in the mini bar, lobbing them in the general direction of his head and hoping one would “land.” Instead, all they did was smash against the window and fall to the floor. Housekeeping was going to have a hell of a time with the mess. Someone might even end up bleeding as a result of this cleaning job (just another prime example of how minimum wage is way too minimum). But after the tempest came and went, she gave Julian a chance to better explain himself. At the core of his explanation was what she suspected: he was too chicken shit to tell her the truth and didn’t want to drive her away.

So now, having fallen for him, what choice did she really have but to stick around? Of course, there would be caveats to her doing so. For example, moving in together wasn’t ever going to be an option. Not so long as his precious child, Brittany, was under the age of eighteen—or however the fuck long it was really going to take her to get out from underneath her parents’ set of roofs. And, to the point of Brittany having two roofs under which to live, the reason Julian had been able to hide the fact that he had a child from Marianne so well was because she only came over on weekends and he was perfectly comfortable to leave her alone in his apartment if ever he went out to meet Marianne at night. It suddenly dawned on her why she always seemed to be spending the night at his place only on weeknights. And why he would never stay the night at hers on weekends. She should have known something was off. But then, ignoring red flags is perhaps the best way to gauge whether or not one really is “into” a person. Marianne could, thus, at last admit to herself that this “thing” with Julian was more than that. It was a full-on relationship.

So maybe that’s how she ended up going against all her better judgment and succumbing to an eventual move-in with Julian. Though she did hold fast to not marrying him. At least, she would keep saying to herself every time she regretted her decision to move in. Usually whenever his child was over. And though she thought she might be 1) less irritated by Brittany the more she grew up and 2) more “part of the family,” so to speak, therefore less prone to having an “outsider” feeling every time she was around both of them, none of these things became true. And that was never more glaring to her than after the first Christmas they all spent together. Which was the second Christmas after Marianne had moved in. She had been spared from spending it with Brittany that first year she took up residence with Julian because the child was relegated to being with her mother. Marianne suspected it was Julian’s crafty way of “cushioning the blow,” “easing her into things,” etc. To spare her from getting right into her “honorary stepmother” role. And to make her believe that things between them would remain “unchanged.” Just as “romantic” as ever. Any notions that such a fantasy might come to be were quickly debunked by reality.

Marianne didn’t want to be the kind of woman that was jealous of a man’s daughter and the time they spent together. Maybe “jealousy” wasn’t even the correct word to describe it. It was more like this feeling of not speaking the same language as them whenever they were together. And knowing that it was a language she could never learn, ergo keeping her constantly at bay from Julian whenever Brittany was in their midst. At Christmastime, when she came to stay for two entire weeks (Weeks! Marianne lamented to herself), that disconnect was even more difficult to ignore. Granted, Julian was being especially attentive during this period to making sure Marianne felt included. After all, she had stayed with them in lieu of going home to visit her own family this year, so the least they could do was not make her feel like a third wheel. Thus, the trio decorated the “Tannenbaum” (a.k.a. fake Christmas tree) together, stringing the lights around it, hanging the ornaments until every branch seemed to have one and then adorning it all with tinsel. All Marianne could think, however, was how arduous it would be to dismantle. And she had the sneaking suspicion, even at the beginning of December, that she would somehow find herself doing this incredibly mundane task alone. For it only feels “festive” when the decorations are going up, not when they’re coming down.

As the days wore on with relative drama-freeness, a sudden “incident” with Brittany’s mother “absolutely required” (the mother’s words) that Julian take her to the ski town that was two hours away during the last weekend Brittany was to complete her stint at their apartment. The following Monday was to be January 7th, an unofficial cutoff, in Marianne’s book, for taking down all the Christmas shit and facing the full-on bleakness that went hand in hand with the rest of the month. But now, with Julian reeled into Operation Take Brittany Back to Her Cunt Mother at the Drop of a Hat, it seemed just as Marianne had intuited when they were putting everything up. She would be undertaking the dismantling endeavor alone. And though Julian assured her that she didn’t have to do it, she knew that he would be completely out of the mood (not that anyone is ever in the mood to do something like this) once he returned, suggesting they wait until the following weekend to do it instead. But the following weekend was too far into January for Marianne to deal with, to tolerate. So she went it alone. Just as, increasingly, she seemed to be going it alone in her relationship the more that Brittany’s daily life encroached upon theirs. But it’s what she had “signed up for,” wasn’t it? When Julian had finally laid all his cards on the table, she could have walked away—but she didn’t.

Removing something like the tenth generic red, ball-shaped ornament from the tree and losing grip on it long enough to let it shatter as it hit the floor, Marianne had to ask herself if it had been the right choice. To stay rather than flee. Maybe it had been naïve of her to believe Julian when he said that she would “barely notice” Brittany’s presence in their lives. A statement that, in and of itself, probably should have been a warning sign. For no father should aim to be so absent from his daughter’s life that he would say something like that.

Sweeping up the pieces of the ornament into a dustpan, Marianne caught a glimpse of her reduced-in-size reflection in one of the shards. Maybe it was the last piece of herself she would be able to recognize if she didn’t walk away from this relationship soon. And wasn’t the beginning of a new year as apropos a time as any to make such a drastic change to her life?