My Daughter Said “we Need A Break” Two Days Before Christmas

The second was to my lawyer.

Not dramatic calls. Not loud. The kind you make sitting in a dark kitchen at midnight when you’re done pretending.

Christmas morning, I woke Josie with hot cocoa and silver-dollar pancakes. I put on Bing Crosby. She opened presents in her pajamas on my living room floor – my living room, my house, forty minutes north – and continue reading …