I’m so sorry!” And I sat down at the counter and laughed.

“Mom,” I said, “make the coffee, and if you’re going to make noise, make enough to wake me up every single day.” We laughed until we couldn’t, the two of us, in the sunlight, and on the shelf behind us stood the little blue vase, full of fresh flowers, its gold cracks plain for anyone to see, because we had decided never to hide them — they were the map of what we’d survived.

I never did find out for certain whether Brandon sent that vase, though I think he did, and I have decided it doesn’t matter, because whatever he meant by it, it became ours the moment my mother set it in the light.

He may have meant it as an apology, or a manipulation, or one last attempt to reach me through the thing he’d broken.