I Left My House Empty Three Days Before Christmas

over sweatpants when it got cold, and could identify every visitor by the sound of their car doors.

“Honey,” she said the second she heard my voice, “your daughter near took the hinges off your front porch yesterday.”

I laughed into the phone.

Mrs. Talbert didn’t. “Good for you, by the way.”

That surprised me.

She kept going. “I saw them pile out over there continue reading …