He offered the smallest one to Frank, the largest to me, and kept the roundest for himself.

“Now we match,” he said.

Frank held the stone beside the old brass lighter.

The contrast made me smile: one object carried a painful history; the other was a gift from a child who knew nothing about old betrayals.

“Which one is more important?” I asked him later, when Theo was skipping along the path ahead.

Frank slipped the stone into his pocket.

“The one I was given today.”