Through the attorney, the earrings came back in a small envelope. Gloria never said sorry, and I stopped waiting for it. In April, I carried my grandmother’s few things into my mother’s little house, where the kitchen still held a faint smell of cinnamon, though no one had cooked there in years.

I braided her white hair that first night, the way she once braided mine. She touched the earrings, then my wrist, and said I was eating enough now. We laughed until she had to wipe her eyes.