That was something worth acknowledging.

Ruth dried the last plate and gave me a look.

“You know what you did, don’t you?” I asked what she meant.

“You finally treated yourself like part of the family.” I laughed because it sounded simple.

But she was right.

For years I had behaved as if everyone else’s needs came first and my place at the table would be whatever was left.

When Daniel made that belief literal, standing outside his home on Christmas Eve, I had finally seen how lonely it had made me.