“‘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”

I reached across and put my hand briefly on Ethan’s arm.

“I’m glad your team came home.”

He nodded once.

I picked up the bread basket and passed it to my left and said something to Aunt Renee about her grandchildren that I no longer remember.

And the dinner continued. More carefully, more quietly, but it continued.

That was how Thanksgiving worked in our continue reading …