"I remember, it was September." Her voice was initially colorless. "The September when we were forced to leave our home, our belongings, our life. Our house was beautiful. Two stories, with large windows. With crystal chandeliers, oak floors, painted tiles in the bathrooms. On the windows, mother had beautiful blue-green curtains made of damask fabric. The tables were always set with embroidered tablecloths. On the walls, paintings and photographs in frames. On the windows, hyacinths and geraniums. But when, that September, the carnage began, if we wanted to survive, we had to leave in a hurry, leaving everything behind. We women rushed back and forth in panic, grabbing whatever we could or whatever we thought we might need. A few clothes, mother’s wedding crowns, the icon of the Virgin Mary, our papers. Jewelry and gold coins. I too went in and out, agitated, casting furtive glances at the things around me; the chairs, the vases with flowers whose water needed changing, the embroidered cushions that I fluffed every morning. I said goodbye to the house in silence. From the doorknobs to the piano, caressing everything with my gaze. It wasn’t the things that mattered to me. It was their welcoming warmth, their companionship, and our memories that had generously settled upon them." She paused. She let out a small sigh. She placed the wrapped jar in the box. She took another sheet of newspaper.