I had not rested, properly, at a family function in years, and I had not known it, because exhaustion that never lifts stops feeling like exhaustion and starts feeling like your personality.

Getting it back was like meeting a version of myself I had assumed was simply gone.

The family had not transformed into something out of a greeting card, and I had stopped needing them to.

We had settled into a new arrangement that nobody had named out loud but everybody understood.

The gatherings were smaller and cheaper and, for that reason, warmer.

We met in backyards and at picnic tables and in the back booths of places that handed you a laminated menu and a roll of paper towels instead of a wine list.