Split mandala across both feet

The rain has come in sideways over the car park again, so I'm writing this at the kitchen table with the radiator ticking under my elbow. You asked whether I still have Nan's blue plate. I do, or half of it. The morning after the funeral the lift in Hartley House was out, and you were carrying the box down six flights when your hip caught the bannister and the plate went over the edge of the landing. I heard it land on the concrete two floors down and thought that was the end of it.

Instead it broke clean along the line of the centre rose, which is why I'm writing. Do you remember the dots? She spent a whole winter pricking them into the glaze with a darning needle, ring after ring, so every petal came out speckled like a thrush's egg. The halves didn't shatter. They just parted, as if they'd been waiting to.

Here is what I did. I took my half to Mr Okafor on the ground floor, who mends everything from kettles to zips, and he set it in resin with a rim of brass so it stands upright on the sill. Yours is wrapped in a tea towel in the drawer under the phone. Don't put it in the bin when you move. Bring it up on the train at Easter and we'll see if the two edges still meet.

Last night I held my half against the window and the streetlight came through the dots, throwing a scatter of small grey shadows across the wall. Nan's petals reached out into empty air, waiting for the rest of the flower to come back. Love, Ruth