Shattered like a Porcelain Vase

Ana was leaving.

Leaving her.

Leaving her alone in this tiny apartment, in this vast city, in a world that didn’t make sense anymore.

She knew Ana cared—sisters always do—but the reasons for it all played like static in Maria’s mind. She replayed the moments, the half-conversations, the silences filled with old tea and unopened letters that covered the kitchen counter. Somehow, despite knowing Ana loved her, she still couldn’t understand why her sister would walk away. Not now. Not when everything felt so fragile, like the vase Maria had once shattered, a porcelain vessel turned to a puzzle of memory on the floor, each shard reflecting her ache in miniature.

Ana had always loved that vase.

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Back in 1981, the vase had occupied the place of honor in Nonna’s flat—a white porcelain beauty, hand-blown, garlanded with delicate flowers and leaves, and curling lines so fine Maria had once thought, in a six-year-old’s secret way, that fairies must have drawn them there. It shimmered in the sunlight that slipped past the kitchen curtains. God help anyone who dared lay a finger on it. Nonna, who seemed sweet and soft to neighbors, would steel with that sharp Sicilian glare and make the culprit regret it for the rest of her days.

Passed down through generations from a great-grandmother with hands quick as scissors and a tongue sharp as lemon, the vase found its way to Nonna’s living room, into Nonna’s life—a quiet witness to all her joys and heartaches, her cooking and kin. The day Ana and Maria DeMariccio came to stay, Nonna pressed both girls to her faded housedress. Maria always thought Nonna’s hugs smelled of polenta and something a little bitter, like coffee that had sat too long on the stove. She never let them out of her sight at first, introducing them to every nook and cranny, giving stern warnings about drawers, windows, and especially the vase.

Ana and Maria: sisters by adoption as much as by blood, though in truth, their parents’ tangled pasts meant even blood was in short supply. They became known in Little Italy for mischief and daring escapes, two little girls squeezed into a bedroom that barely had enough space for both their suitcases and dreams. Their parents were gone—‘andato all’inferno,’ some neighbor whispered once, not knowing Maria understood more Italian than she let on. Nonna never explained, and the girls stopped asking.

Since then, the apartment had been their whole world, its faded wallpaper and squeaky floors a safe perimeter against a city that never slept. Maria, forever restless, became the ‘ragazza pazza’—the heedless girl barnstorming each room, slamming doors, sliding down the banister, raising her voice to hear something echo. Ana, instead, found comfort in the ordinary: dusting furniture, folding towels with fussy precision, twirling the lacy curtains around her fingers until Nonna shooed her away. Where Maria drew frowns and clucks of annoyance, Ana always inspired gentle head-pats and smiles.

But when Ana and Maria were about seven, Nonna’s sister, Prozia Giulia, fell desperately ill. The phone rang late; Nonna’s voice grew tighter, her hands shakier as the months drew on. Medical bills appeared. Maria remembers waking to hushed arguments, the word "ospedale" spoken like it might shatter the air. Finally, Nonna decided, heartbreak twisted tight inside her, to sell the vase. She opened her home to strangers, explaining in clipped Italian that the vase had to go, cupping it as if apologizing with every touch. She said it would help save her sister’s life.

But disaster arrived first. One ordinary Thursday, the air scented with simmering tomatoes and garlic, Maria dashed through the living room, her feet pounding like heartbeats on hardwood. She remembered Nonna’s warning, but speed was everything; Ana was always just behind her. Only this time, Ana wasn’t chasing—she was already at the window, waving at a neighbor’s cat.

"Badare!" Nonna cried, slipping into her native tongue as she poked at a pot on the stove. But it was too late. Maria’s elbow grazed the table’s edge, and the vase teetered, slow-motion agony distorting everything. Sunlight fractured in the tumbling white glass—color and light washing over as it crashed, the sound echoing like church bells in the dead of night.

Maria stopped, breath gone. She stared at the fragments, scattered like tears all across the cheap rug. The pieces caught the light, mocking her, their edges cruel and shining. She wanted to run, but Ana stood frozen, Nonna speechless in the kitchen doorway, hands pressed to her mouth. They all stayed that way—holding guilt, fear, disbelief—until Nonna finally knelt and, with tears wetting her wrinkled cheeks, began picking up the broken vase piece by piece.

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Years passed; Maria never forgot the feel of shattered porcelain under her knees as she tried to help. The pieces lived in a shoebox buried in the closet, revisited only in moments of particular sorrow. Life moved on, as it always did: Ana breezed through school, found a job, started paying rent. Maria drifted, wandered, returned. Now, standing amid the remnants of their shared life—boxes flanking the door, laundry half-folded on her sister's bed—they performed the final dance of parting.

Ana’s boxes stood by the doorway, their flaps gaping like mouths about to swallow her whole. The thick hush of the apartment pressed on Maria’s ears, broken only by the hum of a distant radio and the relentless whirr of city sounds seeping through the walls. Maria clung to the illusion that she could reverse the world’s spin if only she used the right words. She traced the faded flowers on the old vinyl table, wishing she could rewrite old mistakes, erase long silences, or at the very least, speak with clarity instead of trembling hope.

"I wish you’d stay," Maria whispered, voice rough as worn denim, barely louder than memory.

Ana didn’t look back. Her movements were steady—packing, folding, sealing away parts of her life with the careful hands that once mended Maria’s favorite doll. The exhaustion on Ana’s face was vast, marked by sleepless nights and the weight of carrying too much love and not enough forgiveness. Maria wanted to hate her for leaving, but only felt the sting of being left, the echo of that vanished vase, their oldest artifact, lost and never recovered.

At last, Ana paused. She retrieved something from her coat pocket: a tiny chip of white porcelain, smaller than a thumbnail, the only piece they’d bothered saving from the ruins. Ana turned it in her fingers, sunlight caressing its glossy edge, then pressed it gently into Maria’s palm.

"Keep this for me," Ana said, her voice soft but sure. "It’s not perfect, but it’s what we have left."

The apartment door creaked open. Chill November wind rushed in, stirring the scent of old coffee and the last wilted mums on the windowsill. Ana stepped into the corridor, her silhouette shrinking with every step. No words followed; only the weight of the porcelain shard, thrumming with shared history, and the taste of grief alive in Maria’s mouth.

For a long time, Maria stared at that chipped fragment, watching it glow in the weak light. She turned it, feeling the jagged edge bite into her finger, a small pain to anchor her. Some things, she realized, break and never return to their original state. But pieces endure, splinters that still catch the light—reminders held in trembling palms. And sometimes, in a world brimming with losses, that’s enough to hold on to.