She said our mom kept a little knit hat in that shoebox. Yellow, with one ear all stretched out of shape. “She made two,” Diane said. “One for each of you.”

Mine never got mailed. It just sat in the dark for 57 years, smelling like cedar and old paper, waiting on a baby who was already somebody else’s by then.

“It should’ve gone home with you,” Diane told me. Real quiet. “I’m sending it.”

So now here I am. A grown woman of 57, waiting on a yellow baby hat in the mail before I can make myself drive four hours north. Go figure.

Maybe that’s just an excuse I’m telling myself. I’m good at those, in case you haven’t noticed.

But I think when that hat shows up, I’ll set it on the seat beside me and I’ll go. I’ll find the right row. I’ll sit down in the grass and I won’t worry about what a person says to a headstone.

I’ll just say her name out loud, finally. Margaret. And then I’ll say mine.