“You guys, I’m good. It’s been a month, I’m fine.” I’m not fine. “I love all four of you. Dottie’s vajeen is our fourth in case you were wondering. See you tonight. I’ll bring wine.”

“Bye, honey.” “Bye, Win.” “See ya, Winter,” they all say, simultaneously before I hang up the phone.

* * *

Climbing the stairs to my apartment, I decide to grab my shopping bag, then walk to the market up the street to buy a bottle of wine for Sondra’s dinner party tonight.

My phone vibrates in my pocket so I pull it out and see a text from my brother Bennie.

Bennie: Hey, did you get dad anything for his birthday?

Me: Of course. I got it like two months ago.

Bennie: How good is it?

I laugh, rolling my eyes. Every year, Bennie hounds me about what to get our dad for his birthday. So every year I end up buying it for him to stop the barrage of whinny calls and texts. Because, you know, Bennie’s the baby.

Cal gets my dad the same thing every year: Dodgers season tickets. They go together. It’s their thing, their tradition. I get something really sentimental, and Bennie texts and calls me nonstop until I give in and take care of it.

Me: I got him a new leather messenger bag for work. The one he’s using is coming apart. I had his initials and a tiny dragonfly engraved on the inside.

The dragonfly is for my mother, she loved them. And for all the ways my family ignores her absence, her glass dragonfly collection still decorates our house—the entire house. They’re everywhere.

When I was about eight, I saw my dad pick one up, study it, then sat it back down with the largest grin on his face. Even at a young age, I knew that tiny figure stirred emotions in him. I needed to know what. So, I stepped into the room and asked him why he was smiling. Why did he like that dragonfly so much?

He told me he got my mother that one when they were on their honeymoon at Lake Jocassee, in South Carolina. He pointed to another one and said he got it when they bought their house together. Another one when she had the twins. Another she saw at an antique consignment store when they were taking a drive up the coast.

I always assumed the dragonflies were her thing. As it turned out, dragonflies were their thing.

He said the dragonfly represented change, adaptability, self-realization. And that many cultures believed the dragonfly meant clarity and understanding a deeper meaning of life. I was enthralled, hanging on his every word. I had grown up with these glass figures around me and never wondered why until that moment.

“When she crossed my path, she stopped me dead in my tracks. Life around me stilled to a stop. Nothing else mattered but her,” he said. “Everything became clear; my path, my purpose, my place in this world… I was supposed to experience it all with her. Whatever we did, I knew we were supposed to do it together. She was my turning point, my fork in the road, my dragonfly.”