Aunt Jean led my sister Audrey and me through the quiet, rural New Jersey town, pointing out the places from our mother’s childhood, telling stories. We reached the place where her family’s dairy farm once stood, where Mom and her six sisters had grown up. “We’d take turns milking the cows in the morning before school,” Aunt Jean said. “Shared the chores and everything else, even stevens.”
Even-stevens. Mom had taught Audrey and me how important it was to share. But now, a year after her death, we were confronted with how difficult that could be. We debated how to divide the things she’d left behind. Both of us wanted the old milk bottle Mom had saved from the farm, emblazoned with her maiden name—Duble. Its sentimental value was priceless. We couldn’t very well divide it in two.
Mom had treasured that bottle, one of the few belongings she took with her when we moved to Los Angeles, not long after my sister and I were born. My parents only brought what they could fit in their car and a small trailer. The bottle was a fragile link to our family’s past.
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Aunt Jean led us to the pond where Mom ice-skated in the winters. Audrey and I touched the bricks of her old elementary school, and visited the small church where our parents were married. Our last stop was a small antique store where different dealers displayed their merchandise. There was no one else there except for us, the owner, and a man who was setting up his stand. He pulled items from a trunk, one by one, and placed them on a table in front of him.
My sister gasped. I followed her gaze. The man had put out an old glass milk bottle. We walked over to examine it. One Pint, Federal Accredited Herd, Alloway, N.J.—Wm. Duble. From Mom’s farm!
“I just got this yesterday,” the seller explained. “I had to haggle. The guy it belonged to really didn’t want to let it go.”
Of course we bought it without a second thought. Even after her death, Mom still had someone making sure things were even-steven for her girls.
