It was her mother who made holidays tolerable, who urged her father into civility, who filled the house with small kindnesses that softened the edges of his silence. Without her, Miriam suspected, there would be nothing left to tether them together. When her mother died, the balance collapsed.
The warmth that had once buffered her father’s silences was gone, leaving only raw distance. Miriam’s siblings pulled away even further; Daniel moving across the country, Elise immersing herself in work, while Miriam, almost by default, became the one to linger close.