Thanksgiving again. Slices. Short grace. Coat off. Game on. A one-line text from a shift. Proud, used sparingly. A nephew taking two slices. Salt in the greens. A ugly room. A knife that cut clean. Derrick at the head. Patrice at the towel. Vanessa seated. No one standing behind a secret. The secret had been said before grace, once, and then lived after, in receipts and a cafeteria and a pinning and a paycheck that ended the extra. Lived after was the story. The pie was sweet. The sweet was only sweet. Kids ran. Somebody scored. The cheer was only a play. Patrice ate. The day proceeded. The chair was not in the room. The people who needed the true sentence had it. That was the only grace she had wanted, and she had it, on a plate, with the towel still warm.
Lorraine framed the pinning photo and did not send a duplicate. One frame was enough. Imani rolled her eyes and let it stay. Staying was a daughter’s gift. Derrick did not ask for a copy. Not asking was the coat rule, grown. Patrice saved the one photo in the folder and looked at it on the day the calendar square went blank. Blank was a kindness. She had built blanks before, against lies. This blank was against a finished obligation. Finished was new. She made rice. He had already made rice. Two rices. They laughed. Two was a ordinary abundance. Abundance of rice. She could do that.
June sold the spare bed and bought a couch. Imani said the couch is fine. Fine traveled. Once a year became a afternoon sometimes, not a weekend. Afternoons were lighter. Lighter was correct for a relation that was something like a cousin and also not. Patrice did not police the lightness. Policing was a hunger. She asked, once, if the afternoon was all right. Imani said yes. Yes was enough. The bank-colored room did not need a guest to be true. True was the names known. Known held without a visit. Visits were extra. Extra had stopped on a paycheck. She respected extras that stopped.
Vanessa’s salty greens became a recipe card Patrice wrote down. Writing was filing. Filing worked. The card said salt and then more salt. Derrick said that is slander. Vanessa said it is accuracy. Imani, on a call, voted accuracy. Three votes. A joke with a quorum. Quorum was the soft inheritance. Patrice put the card in the recipe box. The recipe box was not the ledger. The ledger was taxes. Taxes sat. Recipes got used. Use was the difference. She used the card at the next dinner. People complained. Complaining was the cheer. She let them complain. Complaint of salt was not a secret. She wanted complaints that were not secrets. She had them.