“But you did,” I said.
“Paul talked me into it.” He leaned against the counter.
“He called me that afternoon and said, ‘We’re going.
Mom said so.’ And I said, ‘Mom’s not here.’ And he said, ‘That’s exactly why we’re going.'”
The kitchen was warm and quiet.
The garden was dark beyond the window.
“Thank Paul for me,” I said.
“Tell him yourself,” Daniel said.
“He’s coming for Christmas.
He’s bringing the kids.”
I set the last plate in the cabinet and folded the dish towel over the handle of the oven.
“All of them?” I said.
“All of them,” Daniel said.
“Lily has already asked if she can sleep in the room with the bookshelves.”
I looked around the kitchen — the table where I had opened Margaret’s letter, the window where I had watched the garden through three years of silence, the chair where I had sat on graduation night and read two pages of her handwriting by the light coming through the glass.
