I Came Home From Nine Months at Sea to Find My Dying Stepfather Alone in a Cold House While My Family Spent His Care Fund on a Cruise

I let out a laugh that was mostly tears.

“I can try,” I said.

“My mother used to make it for me,” he said, and a small smile came onto his face, from somewhere very far back.

“When I was a boy.

On cold nights.”

I went into the dim kitchen and found a tin of canned peaches, and brown sugar, and cinnamon, and a slice of bread, and I warmed it all together as best I knew how.