That first anniversary of the breakfast morning arrives without warning.
One minute it is an ordinary Thursday in March. The next you are standing in your kitchen at 7:01 a.m., coffee in hand, watching pale light come through the blinds at exactly the same angle it did the day Michael knocked on the door. Memory rises not like a movie but like weather, cool and immediate. You let it come.
Then the doorbell rings.
Your heart jumps once before reason catches up. Through the window you see Michael on the porch holding a paper bag from the bakery downtown and two coffee cups. When you open the door, he lifts the bag slightly and says, “Thought the day deserved better biscuits.”
You laugh and let him in.
Emily comes tearing downstairs a minute later in mismatched socks, demanding to know why Uncle Michael is here on a school morning. He says because some mornings are holidays even if nobody else put them on the calendar. You put the pastries on a plate, pour juice, and the three of you sit at the same table where your life split open a year earlier.
