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29 The Weight for Jill Morgan If some true measure of my mother’s sorrow lay in each ounce of vermeil and gold, then I could, bracelet by bracelet, account for years of sadness, and so I took the box to the floor, to hold and smell each piece, invoking the plate glass jeweler’s windows and then the jolt of possession when my father pointed to a ring or necklace pinned to a velvety cushion. Sometimes, aboard a cruise ship, he’d get the urge; sometimes, flushed, after winning at the track. She never went for the most expensive things like some girls do, he said after she died. I sat there, cupping in my palms the stories, my hands sinking with the weight. ...

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