My father stood up at the lake house dinner and raised his glass in fr…

her less than an hour earlier. My aunt Renata, seated directly across from me, looked at my face for one full second.

Then she looked down at her plate.

That was when I knew.

Not that I had been forgotten. I had known that in smaller ways for years. I knew it every time my father told the Christmas story about sleeping in a vinyl hospital chair beside continue reading …