Five Hearts
by Brooks Eisenbise
$250
It was my family’s first Thanksgiving after my maternal grandfather’s death, and I had brought my Canon A-1 with me. I wasn’t expecting us to play cards that year — my grandfather was a card shark, and took tremendous pleasure in spending a game of hearts silent and steel-faced, just to win the whole thing time after time. How could we play without him? Our after-dinner card game was sparked by my grandmother, whose laugh and emotive bluffs warmed the room. None of us mentioned it, but we felt him in the empty chair, playing along.