My Son Brought

stays.

I closed my hand around it.

“You keep making me cry on holidays,” I said.

He grinned.

“It’s my brand.”

I hugged him.

He was taller than me now, but for a second, I remembered the baby he had been, warm and sleeping against my shoulder while I promised him a family I did not yet know how to build.

I had thought family meant grandparents, cousins, tables continue reading …