She said the folding chairs were uncomfortable.
She went anyway.
The first time I visited after Michael was gone, the kitchen smelled like fresh coffee instead of burnt coffee.
The refrigerator still hummed.
The chipped blue table was still there.
But my mother had moved Michael’s chair into the garage.
In its place, she had put a plain wooden chair from the laundry room.
It did not match.
She looked embarrassed when I noticed.
“I know it looks silly,” she said.
“No,” I told her. “It looks like yours.”
She cried then, but not the way she had cried on the kitchen floor.
This time she stayed standing.
Months later, people still asked me what I felt when those SUVs arrived.
They expected me to say relief.
They expected me to say triumph.
The truth was quieter.
I felt the tile under my cheek.
I felt the cuff cutting my wrist.
