Prologue

"What you must make sure", she says with her back to him, "is that she doesn't take the good pillows."

And even though I wasn't there, it is only later that evening after I have made the calls that I have had to make that he recounts this story to me, I can still see her, without smiling squeezing the teabag against the side of the chipped mug before placing it wordlessly down in front of him.

No one tells us how to acknowledge a broken heart, how to form words that may heal, or at the very least put forth sounds of compassion. How to get up in the morning and put on clothes to cover the rawness of an open heart still bleeding. Sometimes the right words are the ones that remain unspoken, sometimes they are simply all in a look, a smile, an embrace.

Years later, I tell this story to friends, laughing. How the end of a relationship, a friendship, a family 5 years in development can be broken down so simply.

Maybe this was her way of reaching out to him, her son. Maybe these were the words she had for all the words she didn't.

I don't know, she never spoke to me again.

How do we mourn all that comes as part of that broken heart? How much do we hide deep inside our bodies, buried in the folds of our flesh to use as a guide in future?

Sometimes we have to see where we came from in order to see best where we are now.

And that is where the story begins again.