At 3:45 on Christmas afternoon, after I had spent two days cooking dinner for my son and daughter-in-law, my doorbell finally rang. It wasn’t them. A courier handed me a manila envelope in Lauren’s handwriting: “We decided to spend Christmas at my mom’s house this year. Last minute change. Hope you understand.” My husband had been gone only nine months. By sunrise the next morning, I found another envelope hidden outside in Richard’s handwriting, and the message inside sent me straight to the desk he had told me not to touch.

The tree was a real Douglas fir.

I picked it out myself and tried to drag it across the tree lot until a teenager in a knit cap finally rescued me.

“You got somebody at home to help you with this?” he asked.

For half a second, I almost said yes.

Habit is cruel like that.

“No,” I said. “It’s just me.”

He tied the tree to the roof of my car and refused the ten-dollar tip I offered him.

At home, I spent most of the evening decorating it.

There was David’s macaroni star from second grade.

A glass snowflake Richard repaired after I dropped it on the kitchen floor.

The brass bell we bought on our twentieth anniversary.

A tiny wooden sled David painted when he was nine.

And near the top, I hung the little red frame that held a photograph from our wedding.

I wore the red dress Richard always liked on Christmas Day, the one with pearl buttons.