I cooked Christmas dinner for seventeen people, and not one of my children came.
Three months later, I disappeared with every dollar they thought was waiting for them.
That sentence sounds cold when I say it now.
Maybe it should.
But cold is not always cruelty.
Sometimes cold is what is left after the last warm thing in you stops trying to survive on scraps.
On Christmas Eve, my kitchen smelled like roasted turkey, honey ham, cinnamon cider, buttered potatoes, and the pecan bread Richard used to bake every December.
The windows over the sink had gone black with winter.
The clock above the stove clicked at 8:40 p.m.
Every tick sounded louder than the one before it.
I had set seventeen places in the dining room.
White linen.
Red napkins.
Silver polished until I could see my tired face bending back at me.
Candles in the center.
Handwritten name cards beside every plate.
Laura.
Michael.
Fiona.
Their spouses.
My eight grandchildren.
I had bought little stockings for the younger ones, even though some of them were nearly grown.
Grandmothers are foolish that way.
In our minds, the child who once ran through the hallway in socks is always hiding somewhere inside the teenager who now forgets to text back.
I stood in the kitchen wearing my green velvet dress and Richard’s pearl necklace, the one he had given me on our thirtieth anniversary.
I told myself not to look at the driveway again.
