A Plate for Three

The candles flickered against the dim light of our dining room, casting long shadows across the table set for three. It was my 47th birthday, a day I used to love. But for the last two years, it had become a quiet ritual of grief, a moment I braved for the small, persistent hope that refused to die inside me. I placed the third plate out of habit—or maybe out of longing. That plate was for Karen.

My daughter hadn’t spoken to me in over two years.

Brad, my husband, walked in from the kitchen with a bowl of mashed potatoes, his expression gentle but uncertain. “You sure about the third plate?” he asked, setting the bowl down next to the meatloaf I had worked too hard to make. My hands were still shaking from preparing it, like I was cooking for someone who might never come home.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Just in case,” I said, as I had every year since she stopped talking to me.

Brad reached across the table and squeezed my hand. He didn’t need to say anything. His eyes said it all—he loved me, he supported me, and he too mourned the silence that had replaced Karen’s laughter.