Chapter 20 - THE THINGS WE NEVER FOUND
Three greeting cards.
One hand-knit baby blanket.
The recycled clothes.
A small ceramic bird Mara bought on vacation.
That one disappeared before Celeste’s storage project and may never have been connected.
I wanted every absence blamed on her.
The inventory could not support it.
We documented uncertainty.
Some items:
Known removed by organizer.
Some:
Likely removed.
Some:
Unknown.
No miracle warehouse recovered everything.
Eva never asked for the ceramic bird.
I did.
That taught me something uncomfortable.
Not every object I wanted preserved was for my daughter.
Some were mine.
I had used her grief to justify my own.
So I made my own memory box.
Separate.
Mara’s letters to me.
Our wedding program.
A photograph from Rome.
The hospital bracelet from Eva’s birth.
Mine.
May you like
Eva had hers.
No emotional commingling required.
