When Dad died in that car accident a week later, everyone tried to comfort me; they spoke of loss and time and other meaningless words that spun around me in a blur.

Every day after school, Jen came into my room. All she did was sit next to me in the window seat, or crawl into bed with me and wrap her arms around me. If she spoke, it was only to say, “Cry. It’s all right.” It felt like she mourned as much as I did.

One day, I just burst out into an emotional bag of weeping.

“I didn’t want him to hug me at my birthday party,” I moaned. It was the first thing I had said for several days.

“And he laughed,” she answered, “he said he’d raised you to be fiercely independent, and he sounded damn proud when he said it.”

When I first noticed the necklace was missing, I thought I’d left it somewhere. Maybe the chain had broken, I thought. I should’ve paid more attention.

Instead, it was another chain that fell apart – one I had always thought was stronger and more precious than even solid gold.