Every Thanksgiving, my family leaves one empty chair at the table. Nobody sits in it. Nobody puts food on it. And nobody talks about why it’s there. When I was little, I assumed it belonged to my grandfather. When I was twelve, I asked my mother. She stopped cutting the turkey and said, “That’s not your story to tell.” So I stopped asking. Years later, after my mother died, I finally asked my father. He looked at the chair for a long time. Then he said, “Your mother put it there.” “For Grandpa?” “No.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out an old photograph. It showed my mother at seventeen, sitting at a Thanksgiving table with a little girl beside her. I had never seen the girl before. My father turned the photograph over. On the back were three words: “She should be here.”