“Daniel called yesterday,” he said, returning to the kitchen.

Margaret kept her back to him.

“Did he?”

“He wanted to know whether we’d received the photographs.”

“Yes. They’re on the mantel.”

“He said Lily’s learning the violin.”

“I know.”

Thomas pulled out a chair. “He asked about Christmas.”

Margaret poured hot water into the teapot, though she had forgotten to put the tea leaves in.

“What did you tell him?”

“That we’d be here.”

“Well, we will.”

“He said he might drive down.”

She took the lid off the pot and looked inside.

“Margaret?”

“Eleven years,” she said.

Thomas waited.

“Eleven Christmases, and now he might drive down.”

“He has a family of his own.”

“So does Emily. She manages.”

“Emily lives twenty minutes away.”

Margaret replaced the lid. “I’m aware of the geography, Thomas.”

He said nothing more. He had learned, over the years, that his wife’s anger was often the last thing she allowed herself to feel before sadness took its place.

Margaret carried the teapot to the table. Only when she sat down did she notice that the water was clear.

Thomas noticed too, but he said nothing. He rose, fetched the tin of Earl Grey from the cupboard, and made the tea himself.

That afternoon, Margaret drove to the supermarket and bought a fresh linen tablecloth. She chose cream rather than white because it reminded her of the one her mother had used when Margaret was a girl. At the checkout, she added a packet of chocolate-covered ginger biscuits, Daniel’s favorite when he was small.

She put them in the pantry behind the flour.

Then she went upstairs to rest.

By four o’clock, Thomas had begun to worry. Margaret rarely slept during the day, and she had not answered when he called from the bottom of the stairs. He found her lying on top of the bedspread, still wearing her cardigan and shoes. Her reading glasses rested on her chest, held in place by one hand.

He knew something was wrong before he touched her.

The paramedics arrived in twelve minutes.

By the time Emily reached the hospital, her father was sitting beside a vending machine with Margaret’s handbag on his knees.

He looked up when she approached.

“Where is she?”

Thomas opened his mouth, then closed it.

Emily understood.

For several seconds, neither of them moved. Behind her, a nurse pushed a trolley along the corridor, its wheels squeaking at regular intervals.

Emily sat beside her father and took the handbag from his lap.

The clasp was broken. Her mother had been meaning to replace it since Easter.

Inside were a packet of tissues, two peppermints, a library card, a grocery receipt, and a photograph of Daniel at eight years old, standing beside a snowman with a crooked carrot nose.