Labor Day came and Vera did not go to a cookout. She stayed home and washed the windows. Washing was a way to not donate the day. Keisha came with the boy and a bucket. They did the front and left the back. The back could be next year. The boy pressed his hand to the glass and left a print. Vera did not wipe it yet. Prints were proof of life. She needed proof. Marcus brought dinner. They ate at the table Raymond had sat at. His chair was Ruth’s when Ruth was there and empty when she was not. Empty was honest. They did not fill it with a jacket. Filling it would have been a lie of a different kind. The boy asked where Grandpa’s plate was. Keisha said in the cupboard. True. Enough.
Nadine took Labor Day as a shift she volunteered for. Work was the anti-shrine. Loretta said you don’t have to punish the calendar. Nadine said I am not punishing it. I am using it. Using was fair. She came home tired and did not open the box. The box was not a holiday. It was a object she had been told to take. She had taken it. Obedience to the widow was the last thing she owed the parlor. She did not owe a grave. She did not owe a call. She owed the leaving. The leaving was done. The eleven years were not undone. Undone was not available. She showered. She slept in the bed. The spine held.
A cousin asked Vera at church if she was angry. Vera said yes. The cousin looked relieved, as if anger were a stage that ended. Vera did not promise an end. Ends were for caskets. She was in a kitchen. Kitchens continued. She went home and moved the mug box to the garage. The garage was not a expulsion. It was a distance. Distance helped the tea taste like tea. Keisha, visiting, saw the space in the cupboard and nodded. Nodding was their dialect. Here. Leaving. A print on a window. A chair empty on purpose. A locket in another closet across town. Two women who would not meet again. A daughter who had exploded a whisper into speech and been right to. Auntie’s chair, restored by absence. The years, still taken, and the ones after, which Vera was spending herself.