PART 5
I looked at the table.
At the candles.
At the silverware.
At the gravy boat.
Then I looked at my son’s hand.
“Give me that.”
He stared at it.
“The gravy boat.”
His eyes dropped to it.
He seemed suddenly ashamed to be holding it.
“This?”
“Yes.”
He stepped toward me.
But before he could reach me, Melissa spoke.
“Mom…”
Everyone turned.
She was crying so hard that her words came out uneven.
“I didn’t steal it.”
I looked at her.
“I didn’t say you did.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“Your son gave it to me.”
I turned toward David.
He looked stunned.
“Mom, I didn’t remember.”
“You didn’t remember?”
“I thought it was Melissa’s family’s.”
Melissa shook her head quickly.
“No. You said your mother wouldn’t want it.”
I stared at my son.
That sentence hurt more than I expected.
Not because of the bowl.
Because of what it meant.
He had taken something from my home after his father died and handed it away because he believed I wouldn’t notice.
Or maybe because someone had told him I wouldn’t.
I looked at the gravy boat.
That little white thing had held my mother’s gravy every Thanksgiving since I was twelve.
I remembered my mother polishing the gold rim with an old dish towel.
I remembered my father scraping the last spoonful from it.
I remembered my husband laughing the first year I made too much gravy.
“Nobody needs this much,” he’d said.
And then he’d gone back for thirds.
I smiled despite myself.
“I don’t want an apology for the gravy boat.”
Melissa looked surprised.
“I don’t?”
“No.”
I took the boat from David.
“I want the truth.”
The room stayed silent.
I held the porcelain against my coat.
“All of it.”
David looked at his wife.
Melissa looked at her mother.
Her mother looked back at her.
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