Last week, I started a new group chat.

I called it Sunday Lunch at Mom's.

I added Kyle. Lauren. Ethan and Lily, who have their own phones now. Amber, too. She hasn't replied yet. Maybe she will.

My first message was simple.

Lunch on the porch this Sunday. 1 o'clock. Crab cakes. Bring nothing. Everybody's welcome. Kyle replied with a thumbs up. Ethan sent a picture of Crab Cake the cat. Lily sent nine hearts.

Then, ten minutes later, Lauren replied.

I'll bring a pie. A real one. I'll make it myself. It'll probably be terrible.

And then, a minute after that:

Is this the only family chat now?

I looked at the message for a long time. Then I typed my answer.

It's the only one we need. Everybody's in this one.

I put my phone down on Mom's kitchen table and looked out at the creek. Crab Cake was asleep on the porch. The third step wasn't loose anymore.

People think the house was what Mom left me.

It wasn't. Not really.

She left me the truth. Forty-seven pages of it, and her handwriting in the margins.

She left me proof that someone had been watching, the whole time I thought nobody was. Someone who saw every Sunday, every furnace, every quiet thing I did and never mentioned.

And she left me a job.

To knock some heads together. Gently.

And to keep the family table full.