There were too many people for her small dining table, so the children ate in the living room while Toby the dog wandered from chair to chair hoping for dropped turkey.

Grace helped Claudia’s son build a pillow fort and forgot, for several hours, that a marriage could change the shape of a holiday.

After dinner she asked whether she could call Derek.

I handed her the phone and stepped into the kitchen.

From where I stood, I could hear only her side of the conversation.

“Did you have pie?

We had two kinds.

I made the place cards.