“‘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”

who I could just like without any qualification at all.

I did not attend Christmas that year.

Michelle did not call.

What Michelle did not do in December was apologize.

What she did was go quiet for three weeks in the period between Christmas and the New Year, which was, for Michelle Cross, a remarkable departure from her ordinary operating mode.

She was continue reading …