When Emer had recognized this forgotten stash, the years of mini-stealing and hoarding, the huge hope and fear it represented packed into neat little rectangles, she fell to her knees keening, as if this was all that was left of her mother’s poor grasping soul, the pretty little packets skittering about her on the kitchen linoleum like bait fish spilling out of a net. There had been enough after all—enough money, love, mayonnaise. She needn’t have worried so hard and so long.
