The bottle sits on the windowsill above the kitchen sink, where I can see it when I wash the breakfast dishes.
It belonged to my mother, and the smell used to be vanilla and something like clove, but now it is just the ghost of a smell.
This morning, my granddaughter had her road test at nine. She was shaking so hard she could not button her blouse.
I took the bottle down and held it out to her. She has never known her great-grandmother, but she pressed her nose to the glass and breathed deep.
"It smells like you," she said. And I suppose that is the point—the bottle carries more than scent now.
She passed her test. When she got home, grinning, I was mending a rip in her favorite jeans by the back door.
The flashlight was still there on the hook, always ready, same as the bottle on the sill.
Some things we keep not because they work, but because they hold the shape of who we were.