My Son Told Me Not to Come for Christmas but Two Days Later My Phone Would Not Stop Ringing

that. The particular grief of a person who loved their mother and has just learned the specific shape of the disrespect that was paid to her memory by someone he chose and trusted.

“I miss her,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “Me too.”

We sat with that for a while in the quiet kitchen where her presence was still available in the way that presences persist continue reading …