"No," Elena said. "It couldn't."
Before winter fully arrived, there was Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving required decisions about tables.
Elena went to Denise's house on the South Side and did not invite Marcus. Denise's sister came, and two cousins, and Elena's grandmother, who moved slower than she used to and saw everything faster. The turkey was dry in the way of turkeys that have been prayed over more than basted. The mac and cheese was perfect. Someone asked about the wedding and Denise said, with a calm that dared contradiction, "We're pausing the calendar," and the subject moved to football and to a neighbor's new puppy and to the exhibit Elena was working on, as if the family had rehearsed how to keep a woman from becoming only her crisis.
After pie, Elena sat on the back steps with her grandmother under a blanket that smelled of cedar closet. The Chicago sky was the color of nickel. Her grandmother said, "Your grandfather lied to me once about money. Not women. Money. I stayed. Some days I think staying made me strong. Some days I think staying made me practiced at swallowing. I cannot tell you which days were right. I can tell you that the swallowing has a cost you should count with your own calculator, not mine."
Elena leaned her head on the old woman's shoulder. "I'm counting."
"Good. Counting is not the same as leaving. And leaving is not the same as failing. Remember both equations."