Sophie used part of hers to pay off her student loans. Claire tucked most of hers into savings.
Emma did something I never expected.
She bought three picture frames. Into each one, she placed one of Vanessa’s earliest deposit receipts – yellowed, dated 2005 – beside a copy of our favorite photograph: the four of us on the porch steps, sunburned and laughing, the summer the girls turned ten.
She gave one frame to each sister.
Sophie stared at hers. “Why would I want this?”
Emma touched the glass over the receipt.
“Because this is what she gave us.”
Then she moved her finger to the photograph.
“And this is who raised us.”
Sophie looked at it for a long, long time. Then she took it home and set it on her bookshelf, where it still sits today.
Both Things Can Be True
On the first anniversary of Vanessa’s death, Claire came over for dinner and asked me, while we were washing dishes, whether I still hated her mother.
