She brought the vase down to me last Christmas, jade and expensive, hand-picked during one of their annual road trips, after which they always came home with extraordinarily expensive purchases for themselves and for us, their two daughters. An upgraded wedding ring from New Mexico for her. For me: a three-thousand-dollar decorative saddle blanket, and an earrings-and-bracelet matching set studded with diamonds and Tiger’s Eye. And another bracelet, silver and ornate. I cannot recall what my sister received.

I had always wanted to inherit the green vase he’d brought home from one of those trips, and then I did. But five months after my mother brings it to me it remains bubble-wrapped in a drawer. Very safe.

What if I put it up on the shelf and a California earthquake causes it to break and smash apart? Wouldn’t that be a little like losing him all over again (and the $800 he paid for it)?

I protect this vase, his memory, my identity as someone from a certain type of family, holding on to all of these things until I can map out who I am when my ego is no longer so intent on framing my inability to lose.

Listen, I say to myself, I deserve to put this vase on the shelf.

After the pep talk I find a very stable shelf, low to the ground. This is where I start.

(originally written in 2019; edited in 2020 and again in 2023)