The Night My Grief Broke

The glass hit the hardwood and exploded into pieces before I even realized I had let it fall.

I had come home from the cemetery, from staring at a stone with my daughter’s name on it, and walked straight into my study like I had done every night for the past three months. I didn’t turn on the overhead lights. I liked the room half–dark, lit only by the brass desk lamp and the strip of moonlight leaking in through the balcony doors.

In one hand, I still held the small silver locket I had left on the grave and then taken back, unable to part with it. In the other, apparently, I had been holding a tumbler of water. The locket stayed. The glass didn’t.

My hand shook so badly I had to sit down.