My father handed me a Christmas work list for our Vermont cottage

My father handed me a Christmas work list for our Vermont cottage: clean every room, cook dinner, wrap gifts, and prepare beds for my brother’s friends. “Don’t screw this up, Stephanie,” Mom laughed.

I worked full-time, but nobody else had a task.

Then my brother added imported champagne to what he expected from me…
Dad put the Christmas list beside my breakfast plate while I was still eating.

I moved my cup so it wouldn’t leave a ring on the paper, which tells you something about where my instincts were that morning.

Before I had decided whether the work was mine, I was already protecting the instructions.

At the top, in his handwriting, was “Clean the entire cottage.”
I read down.

Dinner.

Presents.

Firewood.

Guest rooms.

Not a list of things we needed to divide, with names beside them and somebody offering to trade the beds for the cooking.

There were no names except the one he had spoken when he set it down.

Mine.

The paper occupied the small clear space between my plate and the edge of the table, where I couldn’t avoid looking at it.
“Brandon’s friends expect everything ready,” Dad said.

My younger brother was on his phone, discussing cocktails and arrival times with those friends.

I watched his thumb move while Dad explained what they expected.

Brandon had invited people to our family’s Vermont cottage, and their expectations had apparently traveled straight past him to become my responsibility.

He didn’t reach for the paper.

He didn’t need to see the arrangements being made around his plans.

Mom looked up from her own phone and laughed. “Don’t screw this up, Stephanie.”
I looked at her, waiting for the part that would make it a joke we were sharing.

She went back to her screen.

There hadn’t been a question in Dad’s instructions or hers.

Nobody asked whether I was tired, whether I had plans, or whether preparing an entire house for people my brother invited was something I wanted to do with Christmas.

I was twenty-five and working full-time.

My days already had starting times, tasks, and people who expected things from me.

I didn’t object to work.

That was part of the problem.

I had become so accustomed to being the person who could be relied on that, in my family, being capable had begun to mean being available.

If something needed doing, somebody looked toward me before considering doing it themselves.

We spent Christmas at the cottage every year.

I loved the idea of it: the house in Vermont, everyone arriving, the familiar things coming out of boxes, a meal that took longer than an ordinary dinner.

I wanted to be one of the people who remembered the holiday fondly.

Usually, I remembered which room needed sheets and whether we had enough food for the number of guests Brandon finally admitted were coming.

There were decorations to unpack and beds to make, but I didn’t hate those jobs by themselves.

It was possible to enjoy arranging a room for someone you wanted to see.

I even liked wrapping presents when I could sit down and do it without being called into the kitchen halfway through.

What wore me out was that pleasure never seemed to count as a reason to let me stop.

Mom wanted the cottage to look welcoming.

Dad wanted things ready when people arrived.

Brandon wanted his friends to have a good time.

None of those wishes was terrible on its own, and that had always made it harder to explain why I felt so tired of fulfilling them.

I wanted a good Christmas, too.

I just kept discovering that my version included something theirs didn’t seem to require: a chance for me to be a guest in the holiday I helped provide.

By the time everyone settled with drinks, I was generally searching for another serving spoon or trying to remember which guest couldn’t eat something important.

The conversation would carry on nearby.

I could hear laughter without knowing what had caused it, then arrive just in time for somebody to ask whether there was more of whatever they had finished.

I knew how a good gathering sounded from the kitchen.

I had helped make those holidays happen.

I didn’t want a medal for it.

I wanted to be able to put down a dish and sit with my family without feeling that I had abandoned something halfway through.

There was always another small task, harmless by itself, that somehow found me.

At the end of the visit, everybody had enjoyed Christmas, and I was tired enough to need one.

Looking at Dad’s list, I waited for the usual planning to begin in my head.

What could I prepare before we drove north?

Where had I put the spare guest-room sheets?

Which things had to be bought before the stores became unbearable?

Normally, those questions would already be arranging themselves, each one nudging the next forward before I had finished breakfast.

That morning, they didn’t.

I noticed the absence almost before I noticed my anger.

I read the last item and went back to the first, but I wasn’t organizing anything.

I was looking at how much work could fit on one sheet of paper when the person writing it didn’t intend to do any of it.

Dad had made it look manageable by leaving out the hours.

He hadn’t always described staying at home as a way to make me useful.

After graduation, when I was twenty, my parents encouraged me to remain because the family needed help.

At first, that sounded reasonable.

I could contribute, save, and move when the timing made sense.

I liked being needed by people I loved.

I didn’t understand how easily “when the timing makes sense” could become a date nobody intended to let arrive.

We never agreed how long I would stay.

There was no conversation setting an amount, an end point, or what would happen when I was ready for somewhere of my own.

I didn’t insist on one.

I was young enough to believe that people who wanted what was best for me would recognize it when I began wanting something different from what they needed.

At twenty, staying hadn’t felt like being stuck.

I had just finished one part of my life and was beginning another, and there was comfort in not changing everything at once.

I could work, put money aside, and help the people who had raised me.

I hadn’t arrived with a suitcase and asked them to support me indefinitely.

I had brought a paycheck into the house and imagined that would make me more of an adult there, not less.

That distinction took me longer to understand than I like admitting.

Then there were utilities to cover and groceries that cost more than expected.

Something broke.

Somebody needed help.

I paid because the expenses were real and I lived there, too.

The trouble wasn’t that I contributed.

It was that contributing never seemed to bring me closer to being allowed to arrange my own life.

It simply established how much could be expected next time.

Brandon’s neglected tires became an emergency.

His spontaneous trip became something other people should accommodate.

I wasn’t included when the decisions were made; I heard about them when they turned into problems.

By then, the only question anyone seemed interested in was how soon I could help.

Asking why the problem had become mine made the conversation longer without changing the answer they wanted.

When I mentioned moving, Dad said I was abandoning ship.

I had spent enough time in that house to know what followed.

Mom called me selfish.

Brandon suggested I wanted an apartment so I could feel important.

There was something particularly discouraging about having a perfectly ordinary wish described as a personality problem.

I didn’t want a private elevator and a room devoted to admiring myself.

I wanted a front door, a key, and an evening I could plan.

They reminded me that I didn’t pay formal rent.

The utilities and groceries disappeared from the discussion at that point, as though the lack of one monthly payment meant every other contribution had been imaginary.

I could bring them up, but then we weren’t talking about moving anymore.

We were talking about how ungrateful I sounded for counting what I had done.

An ordinary question about an apartment could turn into an evening of explaining that I still cared about them.

Eventually, I began postponing the subject.

I would raise it after the next expense, when things were calmer, when there wasn’t already a reason for somebody to be upset.

There was always a reason.

I became very good at spotting one before I said anything.

It was easier to handle a task than spend hours defending why I couldn’t.

I knew that wasn’t a sensible arrangement.

Knowing didn’t make me eager to sit through another conversation in which the people I loved told me leaving proved I didn’t love them enough.

So my weekends filled up, my savings grew slowly, and my plans remained things I talked about doing someday.

Rome was one of those plans.

My college friend Luca had moved there the previous year and kept inviting me to visit.

I wanted to go.

I had wanted it long enough that the wish had become familiar, something I could mention without considering when it might actually happen.

There was always work, family, an expense, or a holiday that seemed to have a stronger claim.

I had quietly saved a little money anyway.

Extra hours, things sold because I no longer needed them, small decisions nobody noticed.

My family assumed anything extra went toward the household.

I had stopped correcting that assumption.

I wasn’t ready for a discussion about whether wanting to see a place I had dreamed about made me irresponsible.

At breakfast, I didn’t say any of that.

The list was still beside my plate.

Dad continued eating.

Mom read something on her phone, and Brandon’s messages kept arriving.

They were all busy with their own mornings while mine had been handed to me in advance.

It was almost impressive how little attention it took to assign another adult several days of work.

I picked up the paper again.

The handwriting was familiar.

So was the feeling that if I resisted, the resistance would become the problem, not the amount being asked.

Christmas would be mentioned.

Family would be mentioned.

Nobody would ask Brandon why the friends he invited expected me to prepare their rooms.

They would ask why I had chosen a holiday to become difficult.

.

The paper lay close enough to my plate that I had to move it to finish eating.

I did, folding it along the edge of the table rather than crumpling it.

I was still being careful with Dad’s list.

Around me, breakfast continued.

That ordinary movement bothered me more than a shouted order might have.

Nobody thought something substantial had happened.

They hadn’t just decided whether I would get a holiday; they had merely told me what needed doing, and expected the morning to go on.

What unsettled me most was how clearly I could see the conversation before we had it.

I didn’t believe one brave sentence over breakfast would suddenly make five years of smaller conversations turn out differently.

I had tried explaining things carefully.

I had tried choosing a good moment.

I was tired of treating the right wording as something I simply hadn’t discovered yet.
“I’ll drive to the cottage tomorrow morning,” I said. “I can get there ahead of everyone and prepare things.”
“Fine.”
Dad had already returned to his breakfast.

There was no relief in his voice, no appreciation that I had offered to go early.

He sounded as though I had confirmed a delivery window.

Mom nodded without looking up.

I stood there with the paper in my hand and understood how little agreement meant when nobody believed I was entitled to decline.

Then Brandon asked whether I could bring imported champagne.

He asked casually, looking up just long enough to make sure I had heard.

The cottage had to be cleaned, the rooms prepared, the dinner cooked, and the gifts wrapped.

That still left space in his mind for me to collect a particular drink for the people he intended to entertain.

He wasn’t worried about how I would manage.

Managing was my part.

I agreed calmly enough that nobody studied my face.

Then I set the list down beside my plate.

There wasn’t a task for Dad, Mom, or Brandon anywhere on it.

I was meant to arrive before the family, do the work for the family, and make sure nobody in the family was disappointed.

Christmas hadn’t started, and I already knew where I was expected to spend it: busy, somewhere behind everyone else.

Continue below

Chapter 2/6

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That night, I closed my bedroom door and opened my laptop.

Luca had moved to Rome the year before, and his invitations were still there among our messages.

I had enough saved for a flight and a short stay.

Looking at the fare, I felt the familiar objections assembling: the cottage, the guests, what Dad would say.

For once, I didn’t let them make the decision.

I booked a one-way ticket.

That wasn’t a complete plan for independence, and I knew it.

I still had a job and belongings in my parents’ house.

I arranged a small apartment near Trastevere, packed, and prepared two duffel bags at the back of my closet.

I wasn’t ready to call them moving bags.

I wanted the important things easy to gather.

The next time I left with my suitcase, I went to the airport instead of Vermont.

I checked my documents repeatedly during the journey.

Practical details gave my mind something to do besides imagining my family opening the cottage door.

I had said I would prepare it.

I knew exactly what they expected and exactly what I wasn’t doing.

The apartment in Rome had yellow walls, uneven floors, and a narrow balcony.

I liked it before I unpacked.

There was no voice from another room asking where the towels were or when dinner would be ready.

I stepped outside and looked down at people whose day had nothing to do with Brandon’s friends.

For a minute, I simply watched.

At twelve fourteen Eastern time, I sent the family a message.

I wasn’t at the cottage and wouldn’t be coming.

I wished them a peaceful Christmas, said I was spending the holiday elsewhere, and told them I would return January third.

I asked them not to call.

Then I turned off the phone before I could add six paragraphs trying to make the decision agreeable.

Luca met me near Piazza Venezia with coffee.

He had arranged dinner and didn’t require an explanation before handing me my cup.

We walked through lit streets, crossed bridges, and lingered over meals.

I didn’t post photographs.

I wanted a little of the trip to belong to me before it became something my family could discuss.

On the third day, I connected my phone.

Calls and messages arrived together.

The first asked where I was and whether I was safe.

Then came Dad’s demands, Mom’s embarrassment, and Brandon’s warning that I would regret leaving him to manage the disaster.

I read them without answering.

I had told them I was away, not asked them to decide whether I could be.

Mom sent a photograph of the cottage, dark in the snow. “Is this what you wanted?” I hadn’t wanted darkness or a miserable Christmas.

I had wanted other adults to understand that a warm, welcoming holiday required work.

Looking at the picture, I wondered how photographing the unfinished job had seemed easier than dividing it among themselves.

That evening, in a crowded bar, Luca asked whether I was going back.

I said January third.

He meant back to the old arrangement.

I listened to his friends arguing about football and finally said I thought my family missed what I did more than they missed me.

He didn’t rush to contradict me.

I was grateful and sorry at the same time.

Ethan, my boyfriend, called on New Year’s Eve.

He had worried but respected my request for space.

He asked whether I felt safe, and when I said yes, told me to take the time I needed.

Afterward, I watched Mom’s call go unanswered.

The next morning, I arranged the return flight.

At the airport, I reconnected before boarding.

Brandon had sent another message: “They sold your car.

Hope your little vacation was worth it.” The car and paperwork were mine.

Until then, they had threatened consequences without identifying something they had actually taken.

I read it twice, put the phone away, and looked toward departures.

I had a flight home.

I no longer knew what would be waiting there.

Chapter 3/6
I reached my parents’ house January third after a shuttle, a bus, and the final stretch on foot.

One suitcase wheel had cracked and kept catching.

The house smelled of Mom’s casserole; the television was on.

For one brief moment, the familiar sounds and smells made everything else seem like something I might have misunderstood.

Then Mom saw me, and nobody asked about the journey.

In the living room, they described Christmas.

Guests had arrived to unprepared rooms.

There had been cleaning, cooking, explanations.

I listened while the work I normally did became an extraordinary ordeal because other people had been required to do it.

Mom said I had ruined the holiday.

I told her I had gone to Rome and used money I saved.

Dad said that wasn’t the point.

For once, I didn’t accept his choice of what the point ought to be.

I said I had spent years paying expenses, organizing gatherings, and handling problems I hadn’t created.

Brandon laughed and said, “Here we go.” I told him to let me finish.

That request alone seemed to offend him.

Mom called me dramatic.

Dad said I was behaving like a teenager.

Brandon described a main-character phase.

I had imagined finding words that would let them remain angry while finally understanding me.

Standing there, I realized I had already given them those words.

They disliked the answer, not the explanation.

I said they had missed having everything done.

Dad suggested that if I intended to behave this way, I should leave.

I said I would.

Upstairs, I pulled out the duffel bags and added my documents, laptop, clothes, photographs, and the jewelry box my grandmother gave me.

I checked carefully because anger is a poor packing assistant.

Downstairs, the house went quiet.

No one asked where I was going.

Nobody said goodbye while I waited for the cab.

I gave Ethan’s address.

He opened his apartment door, saw the bags, and moved aside.

His roommate was away.

I took off my coat, sat down, and discovered how tightly I had been holding my shoulders.

That night, I slept without waking.

By morning, there were thirty-seven missed calls.

Brandon had repeated the claim about the car, saying adults could arrange their own transportation.

I contacted the dealership to check it.

An employee confirmed the car was gone and Dad had signed the paperwork December twenty-ninth.

The title had been kept in a locked drawer at my parents’ house.

I had believed that was secure.

Ethan asked whether I wanted to contact the police.

I considered it.

There was no immediate decision that returned the car or made everything simple.

I began with what I could protect that day: banking access, passwords, the shared card arrangement, and the family phone-plan connection.

I made a new email address and blocked numbers.

Each change took longer than announcing I was leaving.

I wrote down accounts, checked details, and tried not to overlook something because I wanted the process finished.

It wasn’t satisfying work.

I would rather have been unpacking souvenirs.

But every completed change reduced the number of places where somebody else could decide that my property or access was theirs to manage.

That afternoon, I searched apartment listings.

Ethan gave me space to do it without treating my need for somewhere of my own as a rejection of his help.

I was grateful for his couch and didn’t want to turn gratitude into another reason to postpone independence.

I needed an address that didn’t depend on remaining agreeable to someone.

Mom emailed that I had made my point and should return before I regretted it.

I read the message without drafting a defense.

I wasn’t looking for a point they would accept anymore.

I was comparing rent, deposits, and locations, trying to find a place I could afford without needing them to approve the amount.

For once, the question was practical.

Could I manage it?

I intended to find out.

Chapter 4/6
Two days later, I stood in a third-floor walk-up with creaking floors and windows that complained in the wind.

The kitchen was a narrow counter beside an old refrigerator.

The bedroom and living room were only just separate.

I could see the inconveniences clearly.

I could also see a room that didn’t already contain three other people’s expectations.

When I received the keys, I held them longer than necessary.

There was no family copy tucked away, no assumption that someone could enter to borrow something or settle an argument.

I still needed furniture and the belongings left at my parents’.

Those were real problems.

The keys meant they could be problems inside a life I was arranging myself.

Ethan offered to come while I collected the rest.

He could wait outside if I wanted.

I said I needed to do it myself.

He looked at me before agreeing, and didn’t convert the offer into a disagreement about whether I knew what was good for me.

That small respect made me feel steadier going in.

I used the spare key I still carried.

Mom sat at the kitchen table; Dad had the news on loudly.

She demanded to know how I could ignore and block them, then walk in.

I said I was collecting my things.

Dad stood and announced we needed to talk.

I told him I wasn’t there for a conversation.

Upstairs, Mom followed me, explaining the embarrassment I had caused.

I gathered books, chargers, clothes, and my grandmother’s framed photograph.

I checked drawers rather than relying on memory.

The room looked smaller, though nothing had changed.

I had spent years treating it as temporary while allowing temporary to occupy most of my adult life.

Brandon appeared near the stairs.

He wanted to know where I was moving.

When I didn’t answer, he asked whether I thought disappearing would make me a different person.

I said I wanted a life of my own.

He smirked.

I kept packing, surprised to find that not waiting for his next remark was something I could simply do.

Downstairs, Mom talked about family and responsibility.

I adjusted the bags on my shoulders.

Dad asked how I planned to manage.

I had a job, I reminded him.

I didn’t have a car, he said.

I answered that he had sold it.

His eyes moved away.

For once, nobody could pretend the obstacle he identified had appeared without their involvement.

Mom said they had done what they needed to do.

I asked what selling my car had solved apart from making it harder for me to leave.

She said I left them on Christmas.

I said they handed me a work list.

We had arrived at the same argument again, and I didn’t have to remain until they liked my version.

Dad called it the biggest mistake of my life.

I carried the bags out, making sure they cleared the door, and closed it normally.

There was no final speech.

I didn’t feel triumphant.

I felt tired, frightened about managing, and relieved to have my belongings.

Those feelings could exist together without one proving the others wrong.

At the apartment, I put everything down and stood listening.

Traffic passed outside.

Someone moved upstairs.

None of those sounds required me to respond.

Ethan arrived that evening with groceries and a folding chair.

We ate on the floor because there was no table.

When I wanted to describe the morning, he listened.

When I stopped, he let the room stay quiet.

I left the television off during the first evenings.

At my parents’, silence often meant someone was angry or waiting to make a demand.

Here, I could hear the building without anticipating footsteps toward my door.

It took time to believe that.

Then one night I noticed I had been reading for an hour without interruption.

I washed my cup, left it to dry, and went to bed without checking whether somebody else needed anything first.

Chapter 5/6
Over the next two weeks, the apartment began to look inhabited.

A mattress, coffee maker, two mismatched plates, and a rug that coordinated with neither.

Later came a bed frame and bookshelf.

My grandmother’s photograph was unpacked before most of the books.

I liked finding a place for it without asking whether somebody wanted something else on that wall.

The pipes made noises I hadn’t learned to ignore.

The rooms weren’t elegant, and carrying groceries upstairs required more commitment than I preferred after work.

But I knew what was waiting when I opened the door.

Sometimes Ethan visited.

Sometimes I spent the evening alone.

I began discovering that both could be pleasant rather than one being a consolation for the other.

I cooked amounts based on who was actually coming.

I went to bed without waiting for a household mood to improve.

My family didn’t have the address.

I hadn’t announced that as a punishment; I simply hadn’t given them information they had shown they couldn’t respect.

For two weeks, no message reached me, and I stopped reaching for the phone whenever it was quiet.

Then an unfamiliar number called at work.

I was expecting a delivery and answered.

A man introduced himself as an attorney and asked for Stephanie A.

Edwards.

Hearing my full name in that voice made me put down my pen.

He wanted to discuss a family financial matter.

I told him I didn’t owe my family money.

His clients believed there had been an informal arrangement, he said.

Housing, transportation, and assistance after I turned eighteen.

They wanted to formalize repayment.

I asked what arrangement.

He returned to their understanding of what they had provided.

I almost laughed at how years of being told that family didn’t keep accounts had become a proposal to settle one.

He said they preferred to resolve it privately.

Would I consider discussing a settlement?

I said no.

I hadn’t agreed to the debt he described.

Then I ended the call.

For several minutes, I stared at the computer without reading.

I had answered firmly, but my body was already preparing for the old job of making a difficult situation stop.

Maybe I had forgotten something.

Maybe there had been a conversation I remembered differently.

That was the familiar effect of my parents’ certainty: I began inspecting my own memory before questioning their demand.

I brought myself back to what the caller actually said.

He hadn’t identified a signed agreement.

He had described what my parents believed.

That evening, Mom used a new email address.

The message ran several pages.

They had supported me, I had left them no choice, and I needed to understand my obligations.

Housing.

Groceries.

Utilities.

Transportation.

Interest.

Then emotional damage.

I read that last category again, sitting at the counter in the apartment I had just begun to enjoy.

The total exceeded forty-seven thousand dollars.

I could feel a response assembling: the bills I paid, the expenses they assigned, the way rent had been invoked whenever they wanted me to feel fortunate.

I knew which parts I wanted to dispute first.

That readiness frightened me a little.

I could give them another whole evening without anyone entering the room.

I didn’t delete the message.

I didn’t answer it either.

I forwarded it to a friend who worked in legal compliance.

I wanted someone outside the argument to look at what had actually been claimed.

My parents were experienced at making a refusal feel dangerous.

That didn’t mean the danger was what they said it was.

After sending it, I set the phone down.

Nothing had been decided by a court.

Nobody had put a judgment in my hands.

I had received a frightening call and an angry calculation.

I still felt frightened, but I could wait for a second opinion before handing the feeling my savings.

The apartment remained around me, small and imperfect, while I waited for my friend to call.

Final chapter 6/6
My friend called within ten minutes.

Had I signed a repayment agreement?

Had my parents made a documented loan?

No to both.

From what I had shown her, she said, their demand appeared unsupported.

The attorney’s call didn’t create an agreement.

She didn’t announce a legal victory on my behalf.

She helped me separate what had arrived from what I feared it meant.

I asked why someone would make the call.

To frighten me into negotiating, she said.

I leaned back and looked around the apartment.

A month earlier, it might have worked.

I would have begun calculating how much I could give up to make everyone calmer.

This time, I saved the message in a folder and blocked the new address.

The car remained a loss I hadn’t resolved.

Leaving didn’t return it or make me stop being angry about it.

I still had ordinary financial limits and transportation to arrange.

But the demand for money didn’t send me back to my parents’ kitchen to ask what I could do to repair a situation they had created.

That was a difference I could feel.

A few days later, Ethan brought inexpensive champagne and paper cups.

We sat on the floor, the folding chair still against the wall.

I asked what we were celebrating.

He said I hadn’t let them scare me back.

I took the cup and thought about how much of my life had been organized around preventing that particular kind of fear.

I used to imagine independence would arrive after a conversation in which everyone understood.

They might be sad or worried, but eventually they would admit I needed to go.

Without that understanding, I thought leaving would feel unfinished.

Yet I had gone to work, bought groceries, paid for my apartment, and made plans.

Their refusal to agree hadn’t prevented the day.

I didn’t need to pretend the memories were harmless.

Dad’s list still bothered me.

So did Mom’s laugh and Brandon assuming there would be imported champagne.

The difference was that I could remember those things without somebody immediately explaining why I was selfish for objecting.

I could be upset and still make dinner.

The feeling no longer had to become a family meeting.

I didn’t write Brandon a long explanation.

He had heard me in the living room and watched me pack.

Another version wouldn’t force him to care about something he preferred to mock.

I didn’t send my parents photographs of the apartment, either.

My grandmother’s picture hung where I wanted it, not where it would make the best evidence that I was doing well.

A month later, I had a small table beside the window.

There was barely enough room to move the chairs, but Ethan and I could sit opposite each other.

We cooked together, occasionally getting in each other’s way.

The kitchen had not been designed for two people reaching for different things at once.

We managed without appointing one of us responsible for the entire meal.

Snow moved past the window while we ate.

Ethan asked whether I thought my family would apologize.

I said no.

I would have welcomed an honest apology, but I couldn’t arrange my life around waiting for one.

I looked at the food and realized I was eating while it was hot, with someone who had helped prepare it.

He asked whether I wanted more.

I said yes, and he passed the dish.

After dinner, we cleared together, negotiating the narrow space without either of us disappearing into another room to relax.

It was a small meal at a small table.

I didn’t spend it wondering whether everyone else was comfortable enough for me to sit down.

Later, after he left, I locked the door and checked my alarm for work.

There would be laundry and errands, and dishes to put away.

I stood at the window a moment, watching the snow collect, then switched off the kitchen light.

In the morning, I would decide what needed doing first.

I went to bed without taking a list with me.

THE END.

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