I placed the unopened package on the top shelf of the closet.
Maybe next year.
That became my private lie.
Then came birthday number thirteen.
I bought Chloe a silver picture frame.
I wrapped it in blue paper because blue had been her favorite color when she was seventeen.
As I sat on the bedroom floor holding it, something inside me finally gave up.
I realized I didn’t even know whether she still liked blue.
I barely knew anything about the woman she had become.
She was thirty years old
