Seated around our table? Three grandmothers- one Jewish, one Vietnamese, one black. All those nationalities convene in Noah and his little sister Mai, who squirmed the whole time to get away from the table so she could see her new puppy. Aiko sat with Chaz and Mama Tran, who added her legendary pho to our holiday menu. Mom and Stanley actually left New York. It’s Stanley’s first time in Atlanta, and he wants to see the King Center and have chicken and waffles before he leaves. As Atlanta sight-seeing goes, that’s a pretty low bar that we can easily clear. Remarkably, as soon as Mrs. Allen and Mom saw each other, it was like old times. Not…secret affair old times, but talking in the kitchen while cooking, cackling over memories, sharing photos of grandchildren and catching up with the changes twenty-five years have wrought in their lives.

They’ve both lost their husbands. My mother has a new one. So much has changed since that first night when they bathed their babies together. After dinner, they insisted on cleaning up, and their incessant chatter, their laughter and reminiscing drifts through the house as we settle into board games and dessert. Our mothers even threatened to throw together a game of mah-jongg.

“Well, we survived our first Christmas,” Kimba says, walking up beside me at the fireplace, taking my hand. “I mean, I’m not sure you can call it just Christmas when there’s Baptists, Buddhists and Jews, but you know what I mean. The holidays.”

“It’s not the holiday we have in common.” I look at our family, full of varying religions and practices. “It’s each other. We’re what brought us together.”

Kimba nods, a contented smile on her face. Hard-earned contentment. We have taken a journey that would break most couples, but we aren’t most.

We’re soul mates.

As fanciful as that may sound, I believe it. Religion, politics, beliefs—all the things that form a person’s worldview—none of them are as strong as what binds me to her: the connective tissue of our souls.

“Everyone’s occupied,” I whisper. “Let’s go up to the roof.”

She looks at me, one brow raised. “Should we sneak off when we have a full house?”

“We should sneak off because we have a full house.” I bend to her ear. “I’ve barely kissed you all day in this asylum. These people are crazy.”