PART 1

By 6:18 that Tuesday evening, winter had already wrapped itself around our quiet cul-de-sac. Porch lights glowed through the cold blue air, and the little plastic snowman two houses away leaned in the wind.

Inside my  kitchen, everything felt warm and familiar. Chicken was heating in the oven, lemon cleaner still scented the counters, and a chocolate silk pie cooled on the stove because my grandchildren still believed  Christmas should taste like my house.

Then Tiffany walked in.

She did not enter like a guest. She came in like someone who had already decided my home partly belonged to her.

“I’m so glad you’re already getting ready,” she said.

I looked at her. “Getting ready for what?”

She sat at my kitchen counter and began naming people. Her sister. Her sister’s children. An uncle. Cousins. A niece. Two friends who “had nowhere warm to go.”