The little stockings I had bought for my grandchildren sat beside the mantel, filled with candy I had no one to give them to.
That was the night something inside me finally became still.
Not broken.
Clear.
Richard had been gone for ten years by then.
One ordinary morning, he had been standing in our bathroom tying his necktie for work.
The next, paramedics were counting over his chest while I gripped the doorframe so tightly that my fingers cramped.
After the funeral, my three children sat around me in
