“Family,” I said.

And for the first time all morning I felt the full cold weight of the word, and I let him see it.

“An hour ago you told me my grief was ruining your Thanksgiving.

You told me to sleep on a concrete floor in below-freezing cold so that Cato could have my dead husband’s bedroom for his office.

Don’t say the word family to me now.

You gave up the word this morning, at that counter, before six.” My mother came toward me with her hands pressed together like a woman praying.