Just weeks before my wedding, my stepmother shattered the one thing I had left of my late mother—her treasured crystal glass set. She stood there, broom in hand, wearing that smug little smile, convinced she’d erased Mom from my life forever. What she didn’t know was that she’d just triggered her own unraveling.

I’m Jennifer, 25 years old. I lost my mom, Alice, when I was sixteen. Her absence still aches like a fresh wound. She was warmth personified—graceful, kind, and always smelling of lavender and cinnamon rolls. More than a mother, she was my best friend.

She didn’t leave behind much, but she did leave me her crystal glasses. To most, they were just fragile glass. To me, they were sacred—symbols of Sunday afternoons spent polishing them together, listening to stories of how she’d found them in a little shop in Grove Wood.