I buried my mother with her most precious heirloom twenty-five years ago. I was the one who placed it inside her coffin before we said our final goodbye. So you can imagine my shock when my son’s fiancée walked into my home wearing that exact necklace—down to the hidden hinge only I had ever known. I’d been cooking all afternoon. Roast chicken sizzling in the oven, golden garlic potatoes roasting alongside, and my mother’s lemon pie sitting on the counter, made from the handwritten recipe card I’d kept in that

I came home from the hospital with our newborn baby and found the locks changed. My husband, Raymond, told me to leave. Twenty hours later, he was back… pounding on the door, shouting it was “life or death.” I didn’t know the real shock was still coming. I had waited a long time to become a mother. Not in the dramatic, movie-style way, but quietly, patiently, year after year, watching other people announce pregnancies while I smiled and whispered to myself, one day… Raymond and I talked about it late