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She knew his voice the moment he answered the phone, on the third ring, and she was unprepared for how hard the familiarity would hit her. Daddy , she wanted to say, even though she knew he’d left her without looking back. Instead, she said, “Um, hi, it’s Aviva. Your daughter.”

There was silence on the other end for a very long time. “Aviva,” he finally said, like it was a foreign word he didn’t know.

“My mom died,” she blurted out.

More silence. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Aviva.

” He didn’t offer anything more. Had she really expected him to?

That after all these years, he’d fling open the doors to his house and invite her in?

That he’d be a father once again? She could hear noise in the background, then his muffled voice telling someone that he was on the phone, to give him a minute.

When he returned, he spoke more quietly.

“Sorry, Aviva. That was one of my daughters.”

I’m one of your daughters , she wanted to remind him, but it seemed he had already forgotten. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked, feeling pathetic.

“I’ll send you some money if you need it,” he said finally.

“Is that why you’re calling?” That’s when she had hung up and promised herself that she would never speak to him again, because what kind of father left in the first place, and then, when given a second chance he didn’t deserve, made sure that his daughter knew once and for all that she meant nothing to him?

She’d been sitting alone in the waiting room three hours later when Colette Marceau, one of the longtime volunteers at the Holocaust education center that Aviva’s mother ran, had swept in, breathless, her eyes red from crying.

“I just saw the story of your mother’s car accident on the news, Aviva,” Colette had said, rushing over and wrapping her arms around her.

Aviva wasn’t that close to Colette, but she knew that the older woman—nearly a generation older than Rachel—was one of her mom’s favorite people.

On the days Aviva had to stop by the center after school, Colette was the only one who seemed to take a genuine interest in her, asking her questions about school and friends and her plans for college.

“How did you know I’d still be here?” Aviva had asked, not hugging back but not rejecting the hug either. Finally, Colette released her and sat down next to her.

“Because I lost my mother, too, and I remember not wanting to leave the last place I’d been with her.

Like there was a piece of her still there.

But there wasn’t, Aviva. The pieces of her were all already inside me, like the pieces of your mom are for you.

You’ll carry her with you wherever you go. ”

Aviva’s tears had begun to flow for the first time since the doctor had come out hours before to tell her that her mother had died on the operating table. “How will I do that?” she asked.

“By being yourself,” Colette said. “Your mother raised you. She already poured herself into you, into who you are. Just stay true to that path, and she’ll be with you always.”

Colette put an arm around Aviva as she sobbed, and after a while, she said, “We don’t have to leave until you want to, but when you’re ready, I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.” Aviva sniffled. “I can’t. Not yet.”

Colette didn’t look thrown by this in the least. “Of course, Aviva. What I meant is that you are welcome to come home with me.”

At this, Aviva had looked up. “With you?”

“For as long as you’d like,” Colette said.

“But… why?”

“Because I know what it’s like when your whole world disappears in an instant.

I won’t sit here and pretend to understand everything you’re feeling, but I do know what loss feels like, and I was fortunate enough to have people offer me a home when I needed one most. It would be my honor to do that for your mother, to do that for you. ”

Aviva wasn’t sure what to make of Colette at that moment; it was the most they’d ever said to each other. “I don’t want you to feel obligated just because you and my mom were friends.”

“I don’t do anything I don’t want to do, Aviva.” Colette held her gaze. “And I don’t make offers I don’t mean.”

Aviva stared back for a long time, and in Colette’s green eyes, she saw strength and determination and the hope that if she could, like Colette, survive the worst, maybe one day she’d be strong enough to stand on her own, too. “Okay. Thank you.”

Colette had patted her hand, but she hadn’t gotten up, nor had she suggested that Aviva follow her.

Instead, she had waited another two hours, quietly, her hand resting on Aviva’s, until Aviva had stood on her own and said that maybe she was ready to leave.

It was in those two hours, during which Colette had simply allowed her to be, that Aviva understood that caring for someone wasn’t about fitting them into spaces that you’d already cut out.

It was about allowing them to exist in their own way.

That was why she owed it to Colette to do all she could to find the answers the older woman sought.

After more than twenty years of Colette’s generosity, maybe she could finally begin to return the favor.

She could hardly wait to tell her that she’d be able to see the bracelet for herself the following night.