It’s cold and empty, save for an open box of baking soda on the top shelf.

Dad should sell the house. And Mom’s car. He should move down to Scottsdale with me and we should become a family again.

I pass through the house a second time, now turning out lights, ending in the master bedroom with the new king bed and new big highboy dresser. The old set with the full bed had been demoted to the guest room, but when Mom died and Dad went to Napa Estates, he took the old master bedroom set with him. It was familiar and he said it felt like Mom.

Mom died so suddenly there were no good-byes.

And Andrew . . . he did say good-bye. He’d kissed me, so very sweetly, before I drove off to get the ice cream.

Damn him.

He didn’t even give me a chance to fight for him.

I had no idea that such a kind man could be so cruel.

• • •

Sunlight pours through the windows waking me. I hadn’t drawn the curtains last night, and I open my eyes, bemused. Everything is foreign. The windows, the light, the pale grass green walls.

And then I remember.

Mom and Dad’s.

Well, Dad’s.

I’ve only just woken up but I suddenly want to cry. I want Mom.

And then I can’t do it, can’t bear being sad, thinking thoughts like this. I’m almost thirty. It has to change.

I toss back the Pottery Barn duvet cover with its green-and-white botanical fern print fabric. There are matching towels in the master bath. Dad didn’t take any of them to his new apartment at Napa Estates. He took the old sheets and towels, the ones that he’d shared all those years with Mom. Dad might keep me at arm’s length but I’ve never doubted his loyalty to Mom.

I shower and search the kitchen for coffee. There is none. There is no food in the house at all. Even the Tupperware containers of flour and sugar and salt are gone. The house is ready to be sold. I have no idea why Dad is hanging on to it.

• • •

I haven’t been to Napa Estates Senior Living since December when I flew up to spend the holidays with Dad. Last December I’d made all these plans for us and our first Christmas without Mom. I’d imagined that Dad would come “home” to the house on Poppy Lane, and we’d have a small, intimate Christmas, the two of us. I’d gone and done a big shop and had even purchased a small tree and decorated it. But when I went to the retirement home I was dismayed by his reaction.

He wasn’t in college and had no desire to go anywhere for “the holidays.” I was welcome to join him for meals and activities at Napa Estates, but there wasn’t going to be this cozy family Christmas. He had no desire for a family Christmas. Not without Mom.

I cried in secret.