The Candle Labeled “To Brandon’s Girl”

That is what makes them such a perfect instrument for a woman like Gene.

They read as graciousness, as attention to detail, as a hostess who has thought of everyone — and underneath the graciousness they are pure control, a way of assigning every person their exact position in the room and daring anyone to move.

I found my card.

I found Brandon’s.

I found the cards for the aunts and the uncles and the teenage cousins, every one of them with a name printed in Gene’s careful hand.

And then I found the card beside Holly’s plate, and I stopped breathing, because it did not have her name on it.