They opened them at the same time. Inside each was an ornament made of a canning jar lid, with a photograph glued into the center under a layer of glitter-flecked glue. The photograph in Renée's was of Ivy and Renée at the beach in Michigan, Ivy furious at the wave. The photograph in Matt's was of Ivy on Matt's shoulders at the apple orchard, the two of them squinting into the sun. Around the edge of each, in Ivy's lurching first-grade capitals, was written: I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH.
"There's a matching hook," Ivy said. "So they can hang next to each other. Ms. Patel said."
Renée held the ornament in her palm. She did not look at Matt. She heard him make a sound, a low choked sound, and she heard him get up and go into the kitchen, and heard the water running in the sink for a long time.
"Is Daddy okay?"
"Daddy's okay," Renée said. "Daddy just really loves his present. Come help me hang them."
They hung them side by side on a branch at Ivy's eye level, the canning jar lids turning slowly on their strings, catching the light.
* * *
Carol and Don arrived at two with the green bean casserole and a red velvet dress with a white collar for Ivy. Kevin came at two-thirty and accepted the quarter-zip with a gracious smile. They ate ham and scalloped potatoes and Renée's mother's macaroni and cheese, the recipe from the index card in Lorraine Holloway's careful slanting hand that Renée kept in a plastic sleeve in the drawer by the stove. Ivy wore the red velvet dress and spilled cranberry sauce on the white collar within twenty minutes.
Carol watched Renée all afternoon. She had known something since the phone call; Renée could see it in the way her mother-in-law held her shoulders, in the extra brightness of her voice, in the way she kept touching Matt's arm as she passed his chair, as if checking that he was still there. Once, in the kitchen, scraping plates, Carol said, without looking up from the sink, "Walt Voss passed this morning. Around six. Lauren called me."
Renée kept scraping.
"I'm sorry," she said. "For her."