Morning
Near midnight, Becca brought the folded flag into the kitchen.
She had placed it earlier in the living room.
Apparently, she had changed her mind.
She cleared a space on the shelf beside Grandpa’s old coffee mug.
Then she looked at me.
“Here?”
It was the first time all day she had asked instead of decided.
I nodded.
Together, we set the flag down.
The morning had begun with that flag covering a casket while my sister used duty as a weapon against me.
By midnight, it was simply Grandpa’s again.
Resting beside the chipped mug he had used on ordinary mornings.
Inside a house where neither granddaughter had to prove she had loved him more.
Becca adjusted one corner.
Then stopped touching it.
I hung my wet black coat over the back of a kitchen chair.
For the first time in five years, I left it there because I knew I would still be in the house when morning came.
THE END
