Businesses.
Families.
Second chances.
Tables large enough for someone else to sit down.
The last time I looked at his handwritten note about Sophie, I no longer cried.
I smiled.
Then Emily called from the kitchen.
“Mom! Max put cinnamon in the sauce!”
“I thought it was paprika!” Max shouted.
Sophie yelled, “It smells weird!”
I closed the recipe book.
Walked toward the noise.
And for a second, through the laughter and complaints and something definitely beginning to burn, I could almost hear James.
Not as a ghost.
Not as some perfect memory.
Just the man I knew.
Laughing because dinner was messy.
Because the kids were loud.
Because none of us were behaving with the polished dignity Margaret once thought mattered so much.
And because the table was full.
That was the legacy he left us.
A full table.
And finally, we knew how to sit at it.
“`
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Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
