At seventy-eight years old, I’d learned that loneliness has a particular weight—not heavy like grief, but persistent like a low-grade fever that never quite breaks. It had been two years since Margaret died, and in that time, the house we’d filled with forty-three years of marriage had grown so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming from the bedroom, could track the settling of old floorboards like a language only I understood. But today was going to be different. Today, I was going to bring my family back together.
I woke before dawn, which wasn’t unusual. Sleep had become elusive since Margaret passed, my body operating on some outdated schedule that still expected her warm presence beside me. I sat on the edge of our bed—my bed now, I kept having to remind myself—and placed my hand on the framed photograph on the nightstand.
“Big day today, Maggie,” I said to her smiling face, the one captured at our fortieth anniversary party. “I’m going to get them all here. Sarah, Michael, the grandkids. Just like you used to do. I’ve been practicing.”
The silence that answered felt heavier than usual.
I shuffled to the kitchen in my slippers, the morning light just beginning to filter through the curtains Margaret had sewn herself. Everything in this house still carried her fingerprints—the carefully organized spice rack, the ceramic rooster she’d insisted on buying at that antique shop in Vermont, the small collection of cookbooks with her notes scribbled in the margins.
I pulled out her favorite, the one with the worn spine and grease-stained pages, and opened it to the holiday section. Taped to the inside cover was her master list, written in her careful cursive: “Patterson Family Holiday Dinner – Battle Plan.” She’d always called it that, approaching these gatherings with the strategic intensity of a general marshaling troops.
Reading her handwriting made my throat tight, but I pushed through the emotion. This was what she would have wanted—the family together, the house alive with voices and laughter, the table groaning under the weight of too much food.
I started with the potatoes. Margaret’s famous garlic mashed potatoes that Sarah and Michael used to fight over as children, each claiming the other got a bigger serving. I must have peeled twenty pounds of russets, my arthritic hands moving slowly but steadily, remembering the rhythm of this work from decades of holidays.
But before I could get too deep into cooking, there was something else I needed to do. Something Margaret had always handled with such grace and persistence that I’d never fully appreciated the skill involved.
I sat down at the kitchen table with the phone, the same harvest-gold rotary model we’d had since 1982. Margaret had refused to replace it even when the grandkids teased her about it. “If it still works, why fix it?” she’d say.
I dialed Sarah first, my daughter. Forty-five years old now, a partner at a prestigious law firm downtown, always busy, always apologizing for being busy.
“Hi, honey,” I said when she answered, trying to inject the right amount of cheer into my voice without sounding desperate. “Just calling to remind you about dinner today. I’m making all your favorites—the potatoes, the green bean casserole, even that cranberry thing you love.”
“Oh, Dad.” There was a pause, and I could hear the clicking of her keyboard in the background. “Is that today?”
My heart sank a little, but I rallied. “We talked about it two weeks ago, sweetie. I’ve got everything ready. Don’t be late—I’m not running a restaurant here, but I am judging.”
That got a laugh. Small, but genuine. “You sound just like Mom.”
The words hit me harder than I expected. For a moment, I couldn’t speak, overwhelmed by the sudden flood of memories—Margaret on the phone with Sarah, teasing and cajoling, somehow always managing to get our daughter to show up despite her demanding schedule.
“That’s because she trained me well,” I managed finally. “So I’ll see you at six?”
“I’ll try, Dad. I really will. I’ve got this deposition prep, but I’ll do my best.”
Try. Not “yes” or “I’ll be there.” Just “try.”
Next, I called Michael, my eldest. Fifty years old, working in corporate finance, married with three kids who seemed to grow taller every time I saw them.
“Mike, it’s your father. Family dinner tonight, remember? I made those potatoes you and your sister used to fight over.”
“You always took her side in those fights,” he said, but I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Because you cheated. You’d sneak extra servings while I was carving the turkey. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” I let my own smile show in my voice. “If you don’t show up tonight, I’ll eat them all myself and enjoy every bite.”
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