She handed me one mug and leaned against my shoulder.

“This Christmas is quieter,” she said.

“Too quiet?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

Outside, the snow covered the porch boards in a clean white layer.

For a second, I remembered another porch, another winter, another version of myself who thought keeping a family together meant absorbing whatever everyone else refused to carry.

Then Mara slipped her hand into mine.

“Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“I like this kind of family Christmas.”

I looked at our reflections in the dark window.

There were only two of us.

And for the first time, it did not look like something was missing.