Just let it go.

Part Five: The Tree

It ended at a dinner in September of 2013 at my mother’s house, and it ended over one sentence, and there were nine people there.

It was my aunt’s birthday.

My mother had cooked.

Carmen had brought a pie and had spent the first hour in the kitchen because she always did, because standing in the kitchen with a job is easier than sitting in a room with my family.

Somebody’s news came up.

A niece, pregnant.

There was the noise people make.

And my mother said — to the table, in a light voice, with a serving spoon in her hand: