He looked at me for a moment, then said softly, “You leaving? made me feel lost.”
I sat across from him, fingers curled around my tea.
The only sound was the quiet popping of the firewood.
I didn’t smile.
I didn’t cry.
“No one said anything when I was there,” I said.
I poured more tea for myself.
“Now I’m quiet and that’s the problem.”
No one argued.
No one defended themselves.
Hie shifted forward.
“I brought gingerbread. Becca picked the flavor you like.”
I nodded but didn’t open the box.
Didn’t say thank you either.
I’ve lived long enough to know not everything brought to your doorstep is love.
The soft light from the string bulbs wrapped around the bookshelf made the room look warm, but nothing could warm the space between me and them.
I picked up Becca’s wreath and hung it on the bedroom door on the same nail I’d kept from past Christmases.
She watched me.
Didn’t say a word.
Just pressed her lips together the way her mother does when she’s trying not to cry.
I sat back down.
Travis glanced toward the window.
“Mom, are you coming back?”
I shook my head.
“I understand,” he whispered. “It’s just It’s all so empty.”
I looked at him.
This boy who used to fear the dark, who clung to me on Christmas night whenever ice slid off the roof.
Now he had a house, a wife, two kids, and still didn’t know how much space a mother truly needs.
I didn’t blame him, didn’t forgive either.
I just said softly like the wind was speaking for me.
I’m not angry. I just don’t live by instructions anymore.
Paused as if something caught in her throat but wouldn’t come out.
Becca sat still, hands clasped tightly in her lap.
No one said anything else, and I didn’t want them to.
Silence on a thick winter day was a complete enough answer.
When they stood up, I didn’t walk them to the door.
I stayed where I was, hand resting on the table’s edge.
I heard the crunch of snow beneath their shoes, the door of the car opening then closing again.
But before the SUV pulled away, I looked out the window.
I saw Becca turn her head.
She smiled a smile that looked just like mine when I was 11.
I just didn’t know if that smile was meant for me.
But either way, that visit closed a door and opened a path I chose for myself.
I used to be called mom, wife, grandma.
But no one ever asked me, “What do I want to be called?”
That morning, I walked across the stone path covered in a thin glaze of ice arms, holding a basket of cinnamon cookies in a worn book with folded corners.
Snow was falling lightly.
Little white flakes resting on the tips of my shoes, collecting at the hem of my deep gray coat.
The scarf around my neck, handknit, still carrying the scent of baby shampoo, was the one Becca gave me two years ago.
Paige and Pine sat at the corner of town where everything seemed to move slower as the year wound down.