She was quiet for a long time. Then she said: “Your mama wore the robe you gave her?”

“Yes.”

“The Christmas robe?”

“Yes.”

“To take pictures for your husband?”

“Yes.”

Denise put down the Hot Cheetos. “I don’t have a Bible verse for this, Renee. I genuinely don’t.”

I filed for divorce on a Monday. My lawyer’s name is Janet and she is terrifyingly efficient and I am grateful for her every day.

My mother and I have not spoken since that Sunday. I blocked her number. I blocked her on Facebook. Kira sees her sometimes — I won’t put my daughter in the middle of this — but I have told Kira exactly one thing: “What happened is between your grandmother and me. I will never ask you to choose.”

Kira said, “I already chose, Mama.” She didn’t say who. She didn’t have to.

It’s Sunday. I don’t cook pot roast anymore. I make pasta. Kira and I eat at the kitchen table and we don’t set a place for anyone else.

The TracFone is in the junk drawer. I don’t know why I kept it. I can’t throw it away and I can’t look at it. It just sits there next to the batteries and the scotch tape.

My mother is sixty-three years old. She was my mother for forty-two years before she was his whatever-she-was. And I keep thinking about that ratio. Forty-two years of braiding my hair and making me soup when I was sick and teaching me to drive and telling me she was proud. Against five years of the Comfort Inn.

The forty-two should win. It doesn’t. The five is louder.

I’m at the dental office. It’s Monday. I’m filing charts. The phone is ringing. I’m keeping a calm face.

Behind it, everything is still on fire.

What would you have done at that Sunday dinner? Would you have waited or would you have exploded the moment you found the phone? Tell us.