CNU-My daughter-in-law said Christmas would be easier if I stayed away, and my son did not even raise his eyes to defend me. So I stayed home, alone, exactly as requested. …

not fully understand until later. The next morning he came to breakfast hungry for the first time in a week.

Susan was harder, which made sense. Twelve is old enough to feel humiliation on behalf of adults and too young to metabolize it without turning some of it into anger. She loved her mother fiercely, mistrusted spectacle, and had inherited Linda’s continue reading …