I read it aloud.
“I forgot Linda and Richard don’t eat red meat, and Jesse is vegan. Can you add a few more options? Nothing fancy. Thanks, Mom!”
Five more dishes.
At one in the morning.
I wanted to call her immediately.
Gloria stopped me.
“Don’t.”
“She keeps adding things.”
“I know.”
“She wrote ‘nothing fancy.’”
“I saw.”
“You’ve been working all day.”
“So have you.”
“This isn’t the same.”
She turned the phone face down.
“Pour me another coffee.”
I did.
The coffee had become bitter after sitting too long on the burner.
She drank it anyway.
At some point, exhaustion finally overtook me.
I fell asleep in the chair.
Sofas& Armchairs
A sudden sharp breath woke me after four.
Gloria stood beside the oven clutching her hand.
She had burned two fingers pulling out a hot tray.
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It isn’t.”
I wrapped her hand with ice while she kept glancing nervously toward the oven.
“The soufflé needs attention,” she insisted.
“It can wait.”
“It can’t.”
I wanted to tell her to stop.
To let something fail.
But we both knew she never would.
Even after the burn, she returned to cooking.
By sunrise, almost everything was finished.
The stew simmered.
The croissants baked.
The macarons cooled.
Despite my own aching back, I kept moving between the stove and counters, trying to shoulder whatever work I could.
Watching Gloria reminded me of the year her restaurant had nearly closed.
Restaurants
Business had collapsed.
Expenses kept rising.
One afternoon she had called me in tears, convinced she needed to give up.
Instead, I had driven even longer hours—sometimes sixteen hours a day—just to keep Gloria’s Corner alive.
We never told Kevin how close we had come to losing everything.
Perhaps protecting him from hardship had taught him never to notice the sacrifices behind it.
By six in the morning, Gloria had completed every requested dish.
Then she prepared two more.
Neither appeared on Tiffany’s list.
The first was tomato soup.
Fruits& Vegetables
Kevin’s favorite whenever he was sick as a child.
She even placed a small handwritten note beside it.
Kevin.
After that, she baked peach cobbler because it had been the first dessert Kevin had ever learned to make beside her.
The kitchen counters overflowed with food.
Thirty-eight requested dishes.
Five additional ones.
Tomato soup.
Peach cobbler.
Every burner had been used.
Every hour of the night had disappeared.
When Gloria finally lifted her coffee, her bandaged fingers trembled with exhaustion.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
She leaned her head against my shoulder for just a moment.
Neither of us knew that only a few hours later, not a single lid would ever be lifted.
Part 2
Morning light spread across the backyard as we carried the last trays outside.
Our yard was simple—a concrete patio, a narrow lawn, and a chain-link fence bordered by our neighbor’s flowers. It would never look like an expensive event venue, but Gloria had turned it into something warm. White tablecloths covered borrowed folding tables, rosemary centerpieces sat inside mason jars, and balloons lined the fence.
Kitchen& Dining
To me, it looked perfect.
Every trip across the yard reminded me that my back had not forgiven the previous day. By the time I finished tying the last balloon, I had to brace myself against the fence to straighten up.
Our neighbor, Miss Doy, noticed immediately.
“Hank Coleman,” she called from the gate, “you’re moving like you’re eighty.”
“I’m decorating.”
“You’re barely standing.”
She walked over carrying a mug of coffee and sat down without waiting for an invitation.
“What happened?”
