Chapter 9
The text came while I was still in my bathrobe.
Daniel was at the kitchen counter with his phone in his hand and Lily's cereal getting soggy in front of her. He didn't read it out loud at first. He just turned the screen toward me.
Helen. 5:30 tonight. Dinner. All of us. Let's put Christmas behind us and be a family again. There was a little Christmas tree emoji at the end.
Lily was drawing circles on her placemat with her spoon. I could hear the heat clicking on in our apartment and the neighbor's kid playing video games through the wall.
"She sent that to both of us?" I asked.
"She sent it to the family group chat," he said. "You, me, her."
He watched me like he was waiting to see if I would make it easy.
I took Lily's bowl to the sink and rinsed it. My hands were shaking a little and I made myself breathe before I answered. I had spent the whole morning deciding what I would do if this came. I wasn't going to make a speech about it.
"Lily and I aren't going," I said. I kept my voice low and even. "You can go if you want to, Daniel. But don't go for me. And don't tell her we're sick or busy. Just tell her we're not coming."
He frowned. "Sarah, if neither of you comes it makes it a thing."
"It is a thing," I said. Lily looked up at me then back down. "If you go, you go as yourself. Not as our proxy."
He stared at his coffee for a long time. He typed something, deleted it, typed again. I saw the three dots appear under his name in the group chat, then his message: Mom, I'll come by around 5:30. Sarah and Lily are staying home tonight. We can talk then.
Helen replied almost instantly. Understood. There will be plenty.
Daniel left at five fifteen. He put on the same dark suit jacket he'd worn on Christmas, and I noticed he checked himself in the hall mirror twice. Lily hugged his leg at the door.
"Will Grandma have soup again?" she asked.
He glanced at me. "Probably something else, sweetie."
After he left, Lily and I stayed at our little table. I didn't turn on the big light. I made grilled cheese in the skillet and tomato soup from a can, and we ate on the couch with a blanket over our legs and watched the snow come down outside the apartment windows. It was quiet in a way that felt like a choice instead of a punishment. Around six, Daniel texted a photo without a caption. I almost didn't open it.
It was Helen's dining room. Same dark wood table, same woven placemats. A white bowl of orange soup in the middle of each place setting. One empty chair where I usually sat, pulled out slightly like someone was expected.
Lily pointed at it. "That's the orange soup," she said. She didn't sound scared, just factual. "Is Daddy eating it?"
I turned the phone over.
Daniel didn't stay long. He was back by seven ten, and I heard his key in the lock before I saw his headlights sweep the church parking lot across the street through our blinds. He came in without taking his coat off right away and stood in the entry with his hands in his pockets.
Lily had fallen asleep on the couch with her head on the armrest. I had pulled the blanket up to her chin.
"Hey," I whispered.
He nodded toward her and then tipped his head toward the kitchen, so I followed him in and left her sleeping.
He leaned against the counter. He looked pale.
"She made the same soup," he said finally. His voice was flat. "Butternut squash. She ladled it at the table. And when she set a bowl down at your place, where you weren't sitting, she said —" He stopped and swallowed. "She said, 'Well, we saved Sarah a bowl. Try not to wear it this time,' and she laughed. My cousin laughed a little too because he didn't know what else to do."
I didn't move. The kitchen smelled like butter and the kid's soup bowls from earlier were still in the drying rack.
"Did you say anything?" I asked.
He shook his head slowly. "Not right then. I couldn't. I just stared at that empty chair. Your chair. And the bowl steaming there with nobody to eat it. It was supposed to be funny. It just made me feel sick." He pressed his palms into his eyes for a second. "I didn't eat mine. I told her I wasn't hungry and I left. I told her that joke wasn't okay."
I felt my breath catch, but not from surprise. From the fact that he had seen it without me having to bleed in front of him.
"You came home," I said.
"I didn't want to be there without you," he said. "It didn't feel like family. It felt like you were supposed to be the joke."
May you like
He was still standing in his coat, and for the first time since Christmas, he wasn't trying to get me to explain why I was upset. He was just standing there feeling it himself.
Behind us, Lily breathed evenly on the couch. I didn't forgive anything in that kitchen. I just let the quiet hold, and I didn't carry the weight of his mother's dinner for him.
