Margot had worn the dress to the school concert and walked onto the stage in front of the entire school. She sang beautifully, and when the audience applauded, she began to cry. Wren sat in the third row, crying too. When she returned home, she could not explain what had happened because she was afraid to tell me she had given away her father’s watch without asking first.

She had expected me to be angry. Instead, after Odette left, I sat beside her on her bed and told her what the watch had meant to me. It carried eleven years of memories, of mornings, familiar gestures, and the man I still missed every day. But I could also see what it had come to mean to her. Giving away something that costs you something real is different from offering what you can easily spare. Wren began to cry again, and I wrapped my arms around her. We stayed that way for a long time, without needing to explain anything more.