The invitations changed the weeks leading up to Christmas more than I expected.
At first, I thought keeping busy would simply stop me from thinking about Daniel.
Instead, I began looking forward to the dinner for its own sake.
Carol came by one afternoon with a box of old glass ornaments she’d found while cleaning out a closet.
“My husband always put these on the tree,” she said.
She held one up, a slightly crooked silver bell with the paint wearing off.
“I couldn’t do it this year.”
“Then put one on mine.”
She looked at me.
“Really?”
I moved aside.
Carol hung the bell on a branch near the front.
She stood there with her fingers still touching it.
Then she smiled.
“There. Now he made it to Christmas.”
I didn’t say anything.
There was nothing to add.
Priya came over the following weekend while I was baking.
My kitchen smelled like anise, butter, brown sugar, and cloves.
She watched me pull a tray of Pfeffernüsse from the oven.
“What are those?”
“German spice cookies.”
“Family recipe?”
I nodded toward the wooden box on the counter.
“My mother’s recipe. Her mother’s before that.”
Priya asked if she could see it.
I handed her the index card.
She held it carefully by the edges.
The card was stained with butter and darkened near one corner. My mother’s handwriting slanted to the right, blue ink fading into gray.
“My grandmother cooked everything from memory,” Priya said. “There was a lamb dish she made with twenty-two spices.”
“Twenty-two?”
“That’s what she claimed. Nobody was ever allowed to count.”
I smiled.
“Do you have the recipe?”
Priya shook her head.
“She died when I was twelve. My mother tried to recreate it, but it was never the same.”
She looked again at my mother’s card.
“You have to protect these.”
“I know.”
“Someday someone will want them.”
Her words stayed with me.
A few days later, Daniel stopped by on his way home from work.
It was the first time I’d seen him since our phone conversation.
By then, the tree was up.
I had decorated it with every ridiculous handmade ornament he’d brought home from school.
There was a clothespin reindeer with one eye.
A construction-paper angel.
A red glass ball containing his kindergarten picture, complete with a bowl haircut he had hated in later years.
A clay handprint painted red and green.
Daniel stood in front of the tree.
“You still put this stuff up?”
“Every year.”
He touched the clay handprint.
“I remember making this.”
“You were furious because your hand came out blurry.”
He smiled.
“Mrs. Palmer made us redo them three times.”
“Mrs. Palmer was a perfectionist.”
His smile faded when he noticed the dining room.
I already had one extra table brought in.
“What is all this?”
“I’m having people for Christmas.”
“People?”
“Seventeen of them.”
He looked genuinely surprised.
“Seventeen?”
“That’s the current count.”
“Who?”
“Friends. Neighbors. People who didn’t have plans.”
He stared at me for a second too long.
I knew my son.
That expression wasn’t anger.
It was discomfort.
Maybe he’d expected the house to go dark in his absence.
Maybe some part of him had assumed Christmas simply belonged to him.
“Wow,” he said finally.
“Coffee?”
“No, I can’t stay. Natalie’s waiting.”
“All right.”
He walked toward the door, then stopped.
“You didn’t have to do all this because of what I said.”
That irritated me more than I expected.
“I didn’t.”
He turned.
“I didn’t invite seventeen people to prove something to you, Daniel.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“You implied it.”
He looked toward the dining room.
I softened my voice.
“You made your Christmas plans. I made mine.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”