The next morning was a Saturday.
I woke up early. I didn’t really decide to do it. I just went downstairs, got out the big bowl, and started mixing pancake batter. I hadn’t made pancakes on a Saturday since David died. I’d been avoiding it like the song.
I burned the first one. Badly. Smoke and everything.
I stood there looking at it in the pan, and I started laughing. I don’t know why. I laughed until I had to put the spatula down.
“Mom?”
Caleb was in the doorway in his pajamas, hair sticking up on one side, squinting at the smoke.
“I burned it,” I said, still laughing. “Your dad would be so proud.”
He looked at the pan. Then he looked at me. Then, slowly, he went over to the corner of the kitchen and dragged a chair over to the stove, the way he used to when he was little.
