I saw it, you know. I saw her face. My daughter, my beautiful girl, 40 years old and weeping silently over a slice of pie. A pie. And I just… stood there. I was in the kitchen, right there. She’d made it, her grandmother’s recipe, her favorite, my mom’s favorite. Lemon meringue, mile-high meringue, exactly how my mother used to make it. And Mom just stared at it, this blank look, like she was trying to figure out if it was a hat or a shoe or something. Didn’t recognize it. Didn’t recognize the pie. Didn’t recognize her daughter, who was trying so hard to make everything normal, to pretend we were just having a regular Sunday dinner like we used to, every single Sunday, every Sunday of my childhood. And my daughter, she was always so witty, always had a comeback, always making people laugh. She’d sit there and crack jokes, keep everyone entertained, keep everyone happy. And she just crumbled, just quiet tears rolling down her face as my mother, her grandmother, her witty, sharp, amazing grandmother, looked right through her. And I just watched. I didn't do anything. I just watched. That’s the thing, isn’t it? I’ve been watching for so long. Always watching, always observing, always analyzing for work. For my job. My career. My whole life was my career, you know? Decades of it. And now… now I’m retired. Now my days are empty. And I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know who I am without that. Without the spreadsheets, without the meetings, without the daily grind that used to feel like a straightjacket and now feels like… like I lost my whole identity. I used to think, oh, I’ll have so much time. Time for family. Time for the things that really matter. Ha! What a laugh, right? What a cruel joke. Because now I have all this time and I don’t know how to use it. I just sit and stare at the walls, or scroll on my phone, or remember all the things I missed. All the things I PUT OFF. Like being there. Really being there. I should have done more, I know it. I should have paid more attention. Every single day, every day I was at work, I told myself, oh, someday, someday I’ll make it up to them. Someday I’ll be present. Someday I’ll be the kind of mother, the kind of daughter, I always wanted to be. And now… now my daughter is crying over a pie, and my mother is gone, even though she’s still here. And I’m just… empty. So empty. And I can’t stop thinking about that pie. That beautiful, perfect lemon meringue pie. And how nobody even tasted it. Just sat there, mocking us all with its perfect, hopeful meringue. It’s funny, isn’t it? In a really dark, messed-up kind of way. Laughing so I don't just scream.