Then one ordinary afternoon, my granddaughter Sophie walked into my kitchen and brought the past with her.
She was sixteen then.
Almost exactly the age Laura and I had been when everything changed.
“Grandma?”
I looked up from the counter.
Sophie was wearing a cream-colored sweater.
There was a large yellow sunflower stitched across the front.
The bowl I was holding slipped from my hands and hit the counter.
Sophie jumped.
“What?”
I couldn’t answer.
I stared at the sweater.
The cream wool.
The slightly oversized sleeves.
The sunflower.
I knew that sweater.
I had known it before Sophie was born.
Before her mother was born.
Before I had wrinkles or gray hair or grandchildren.
Laura had worn it on our sixteenth birthday.
The last night I ever saw her.
“Sophie.”
My voice barely came out.
“Where did you get that?”
She looked down at herself.
“This?”
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“Where did you get it?”
Her smile disappeared.
“One of the cleaners at school gave it to me.”
