Life is strange that way.
It does not always give back what was taken.
Sometimes it gives you proof that you were not foolish for wanting to give in the first place.
On the next Christmas Eve, I did not cook for seventeen people.
I cooked for six women from my building, two volunteers from the kitchen, and one widower who brought store-bought pie and apologized for it three times.
I wore the green velvet dress.
I wore Richard’s pearls.
At 8:40 p.m., I looked at the clock above the stove in the community room and felt the old pain brush against me.
But it did not own the room.
People were laughing.
Someone spilled cider.
The widower’s pie was too sweet.
A woman named June asked for Richard’s pecan bread recipe.
And for the first time in ten years, Christmas Eve did not feel like a test I had failed.
Near the end of dinner, my phone buzzed.
It was a message from Fiona.
Merry Christmas, Mom. I know I don’t deserve an answer. I just wanted you to know I showed up at the church kitchen today. I stayed until the dishes were done.
