Chapter 14
I renovated the dining room.
Not immediately.
For two years, we ate in the kitchen.
The long table remained covered beneath a white cloth.
The head chair stayed against the wall.
Lily refused to sit near it.
Owen called it “Donna’s chair,” though it had been mine for most of my life.
One spring morning, I removed all the chairs and invited the children to help me choose replacements.
Lily asked:
“Are you throwing Grandpa’s table away?”
“No.”
James built parts of it from reclaimed walnut.
I wanted to keep it.
“What about the head?”
I looked at the rectangular shape.
“A table has two ends.”
“But only one boss chair.”
“That was our habit, not a law.”
We purchased eight matching chairs.
No arms.
No larger back.
No designated head.
Claire objected at first.
“Dad loved that chair.”
“Dad loved many traditions. He also changed them when they stopped serving people.”
We placed the old head chair inside James’s study.
Not as a throne.
As a reading chair beside the window.
The first Christmas after the trial, Claire asked whether we should host dinner elsewhere.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“This is my home.”
“What if it feels wrong?”
“Then we stop.”
We invited only six people.
Claire.
Lily.
Owen.
Leah.
My sister Ruth.
And a neighbor whose husband had died that year.
No Donna.
No Brandon.
No guests selected for appearances.
Claire cooked the prime rib.
I made potatoes.
Lily arranged candles.
Owen wrote place cards, then changed his mind and tore them up.
“People can choose,” he said.
We sat wherever we wished.
I chose the middle.
Not because I feared the end.
Because Lily wanted to sit beside me.
During dinner, Claire looked toward James’s old chair visible through the study door.
“Do you miss it?”
“The chair?”
“Dad at the table.”
“Yes.”
“Does changing things feel like removing him?”
“Sometimes.”
“Then why do it?”
“Because memory should not require everyone else to remain frozen.”
May you like
She nodded.
That lesson belonged to both of us.
