“‘This is Diana—our family dropout,’ my mother said for the fifteenth Thanksgiving in a row, but when my sister’s new husband reached across the table to shake my hand, his grip locked, his face went still, and the room forgot how to laugh before he said the two words nobody there was prepared to hear”

Cassidy had done the arithmetic.

The dinner in Richmond proceeded without me, and Cassidy told me later what it had looked like. My chair was gone. Michelle had not set a place for me. Aunt Renee had asked where I was, and Michelle said she decided not to come in the tone of someone presenting a clean and neutral fact.

Ethan had said nothing at the table.continue reading …