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The house smelled like nutmeg and damp coats.
The front yard maple had given up the last of its leaves.
When I stepped inside, the thermostat clicked like a conscience.
Heat. Good.
In the living room, the same family artifacts time can’t pry from people: the wedding photo where Mom’s veil looks like a cloud, the souvenir mug from a Wisconsin Dells trip we took when I was nine, Dad’s ceramic eagle that he pretends he doesn’t love.
The show had started without me.
Sarah was first in my path.
The look she gave me was the kind people save for a shoe dragged through something.
“Well,” she said. “Look who isn’t too busy skiing.”
“Hello, Sarah,” I said. “Hello, Mike.”
He didn’t meet my eyes.
Emma and Lucas peered around the couch, the way children do when the weather changes.
I crouched.
“Hey. Big kid high five?”
They slapped my hands like any kids in any house.
None of this was their doing.
Mom came out of the kitchen holding a gravy whisk like a baton.
Her face collapsed into tears so fast I didn’t have time to brace.
“Annie,” she said, and I let the name pass this time. “You came.”
“I did,” I said. “And I can stay for ninety minutes.”
Clarity dressed as politeness.
We ate.