“Because we could,” Janet Murrow laughs. “That was a night.”

“I’ll never forget,” Mrs. Wickett starts to say, and everyone quiets, grateful that she’s joining in. “All the candles we lit.”

Brian beams. “We went on well into the night, didn’t we? Out there in the garden.”

“The garden?” I’m not sure why, but that surprises me.

Sally leans over to me. “Oh yes, time was, we would carry this table and others out onto the green, and everyone would come, close to a hundred of us.”

“You carried this table down the steps?” I shake my head. “That doesn’t seem safe!”

“We set it up the day before, didn’t we?” Matthew laughs, his eyes warm on mine. “And we didn’t eat until the Day was done.”

“I was able to do a roast two times ago,” Sally goes on, reminiscing. “No worries about using the oven, because the seven had gone early. That was a lucky year as far as the tithing days go. Lucky for we the living anyway.”

I wonder how they’ll rate this year, this dinner, these memories.

“What about last time?” I ask. “Was that out in the garden too?”

Sally falls silent. Everyone falls silent.

Jo says, “There was no dinner last time.”

It takes me a moment to realize why.

Lord Treadway died. Hugh was gone.

The house sat empty, no one to host.

The room’s gone stale with sadness—the first lull of the evening.

I look to Hugh. He lifts his wine in a weird little toast before sipping it.

“I’m finished!” Charlie’s voice rings out, shattering the awkwardness. He brandishes his empty bowl to an approving smile from Sally, then crawls into my lap as conversation resumes around us once again and Emma instantly launches into a snarling tantrum.

“I want Mummy! My mummy!”

Down the table, Jo rises again, noticing, but I smile and wave her off. They can both cling to me. I will not push them away, and I don’t choose favorites. I am not my mother, my poor, tortured, bitter mother.

I wish suddenly someone had stepped in to help her after she had me. To let her sleep. So much might have been different.

“When’s bedtime?” Charlie asks.

It’s already passed. Everything’s gone loose. This morning, I clung to the idea of our routine, checking the boxes, but now all our normal structures have fallen away, and it feels right and good. I don’t even know what time it is now, except that it’s past bedtime. No wonder Emma’s gotten fussy, though less than I would have expected at a huge gathering of adults.

Charlie’s waiting for an answer.

“You get to stay up late tonight. Aren’t you lucky?” I say.

He buries his face in my neck. “What about tomorrow?”

I laugh, rustle his hair. “Hmm. We’ll see.”

“There’s three more left.”