Chapter 1
brOKEN PIECES
My name is Jade—like the plant, not the stone.
A distinction my mother would commonly correct people on when I was younger, making sure it was a mistake that was never repeated twice.
Why she cared so much forever evaded me, but I know it wasn’t malicious in manner.
Just one of her many quirks regarding my life, like many mothers have.
But whether it was a jade plant or a jade stone, Jade is the name I own.
Growing up, we even had a large jade plant that sat in a cozy corner of the kitchen.
I felt nothing towards it. Some days when the sun hit it just right, you could see tiny dust particles dancing off of it like moths to a flame.
And I guess in those moments, I felt some vague wonder towards it.
Some small bit of connection. But it was a connection based on the fact that I too felt dusty, stagnant, and immovable.
As if I were put in a moment of time, I didn’t quite belong.
And so, I escaped into my mind and into music. Music always granting me access to some feeling or place in time I felt more attached to. The words of Stevie Nicks holding more value than any relationship in my real life could offer, apart from my late mother.
My mind was another story. It would take me places that couldn’t possibly be real. Daydreams, some might argue, but to me they felt as sure as the ground beneath my feet, anchoring like embedded roots deep within my psyche. Feeling more like visions of moments I swear I’ve lived before.
These visions that played out in my head stopped being a habit—they became who I was.
Tugging me toward a life of what some might see as quiet contemplation, when in reality my mind was plagued by a series of movies playing out in real time from another time altogether.
Scenes so real that I felt a nagging feeling telling me something vital was missing. Or someone.
I was called many names in my younger days; mysterious, spacey, and, always my favorite, devoid of reality. I’d happily claim each adjective as my own. While I hold no validity in people’s perception of me, there is always a small smidge of truth buried within it.
In all honesty, I grasped at a love my mind invented—idealized and out of reach.
A version of love that I felt like I knew on some base level of my being, but never feeling like I could actually picture in this reality.
Even when my feet were planted firmly on the ground, something always tugged me elsewhere, some place deeper—some place that felt more like home than this in-between liminal life.
And even now, as a twenty-six-year-old, I still hold on to that deeply romanticized idea of love.
A love that dances you around on a balmy moonlit night in the presence of friends, spinning until you only see each other.
One that creates handmade treasures that speak directly to your heart, or even transcends time to search for you no matter the circumstances.
I realize I am the odd one out, but that is the love I have been looking for, and I’m starting to think it doesn’t exist for me.
Thankfully, I hold that level of adoration for the treasures in my shop.
The touch of my hand imbuing it from them, as well as gracing me with a past glimpse of a tall and dark man handing it to a faceless girl about the same age as myself.
These vaguely nostalgic items in this shop are the reason I stay.
Working at a vintage art and collectibles gallery has its perks.
For one, I get to roam the cities in search of anything old with monetary value to sell in my mother’s shop.
At least I used to when she was alive and still felt enthusiasm toward the hunt, but her death put a halt to the giddy exploration of hidden treasures.
Getting to learn the history behind those objects is another perk I am fond of, and one that has not yet faded.
My mother and I would spend hours researching, and I can still invoke the joy we felt when we cracked the historical code on a turn of the century Art Nuevo piece from France that last spring she was still with me.
She passed when I was nineteen, and this store is what she left to me, and all that I have left of her.
Nonetheless, here I am at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday, pushing the key into the old copper lock, ready to start another morning. A memory of my mother doing the same morning routine fills my thoughts, her face beaming down at me.
I see her expression most mornings when I set the worn key inside its lock, but today the mirage of her face seems off—worried, fearful. Before I can dive deeper into the meaning, I am pulled out of my memory by a mass of crows in the giant oak tree next to our lot, cawing a special good morning.
“Good morning to you, too,” I say dryly, looking up toward the nearby tree at the mass of black feathers hidden beneath a sea of deep green leaves.
A small breeze rustles through the tree above and caresses my skin.
The summer heat feels welcoming. Only three months of this makes one long for a climate that holds this kind of warmth throughout the entire year.
Carya, the stray tabby cat, comes brushing along my feet and sneaks in once I have the door just barely open, almost tripping up my brown suede double strap Mary Jane clad feet.
A recent fashion splurge that had a lot to do with the bottomless pina colada drinks my best friend Lollie and I had prior to shopping.
“And hello to you, sweet girl.” I scratch her orange striped back, and she arches just enough to show she is happy to see me.
After one wild stormy night, this fluffy bundle of fur turned up at the shop door as a kitten unannounced, starving and in need of a warm place to sleep.
Over the past three years, I have watched Carya grow from a kitten to the soft lug I’ve come to call my own.
Her soft meow is accompanied by another warm, devoted brush against my leg.
The feeling is mutual, and she knows it.
My little shop of dated eccentricities is tucked between a tiny bougie flower shop and an inconspicuous and proper law office in Detroit.
I smile, noticing how the soft smell of fresh blooms wafts around me.
I enjoy the way it mixes with the archaic smell of the eclectic findings of my shop, which is why I usually keep my door open to welcome the aroma.
A frame of chipped salmon paint surrounds the stained-glass window that adorns the top of the door. Quiet reminders from the paint job years ago when we first had a more solid and hopeful vision for the place. A time much different from the position I find myself in now.
The ancient items surrounding me take shape in my still-groggy eyes as I walk into Moon Shadow Collectibles.
Romantic-era prints line the walls—finds from estate sales, scavenged with my mother in the old homes of Detroit’s once-wealthy.
Some would say the prints are excessive, morbid even, but I’ve always had an affinity towards that dark, ethereal era of art.
My mother would roll her eyes whenever I’d ask her to look for pieces of this era, but she always did.
Now they greet me each morning like a quiet echo of her infinite love, even as her presence fades.
I see her looking at me now with her sage eyes that hold a wisdom I can’t even begin to interpret.
Eyes are funny that way. They stay locked in my memory of all the words that were never said, but clearly conveyed in one glance.
Her eyes communicated a lot of unspoken knowing when she was here, and they stay with me, even when my own close shut at the day’s end.
The store comes to life as I move to each switch and scrutinize some of the pieces I’ve seen every day for the last ten years.
The art déco collection of old lock and key sets sparkles in its respective place next to the Romanian pottery vase we found by chance at an estate sale in Hamtramck.
I trace the rough grooves of the spiky floral design as though my very own hand had etched them.
The half-melting candles in various candelabras drip with hardened wax as if frozen in time waiting to be released, and a first edition Frankenstein book that has a not for sale sticker underneath it all greet me in silent earnest. Every one of these items I’ve cleaned, dusted, and researched over the past decade. All hold a small claim on my heart.
One piece in particular sits on the counter right next to the cash register.
It is a willow tree made completely of jade stone.
And while our old jade plant left me with no feelings, the cascading delicate green branches of this stone willow speak to me as if it were embedded in my soul.
It sits heavy in the cradle of my palm as I give it careful consideration.
A piece I’ve always loved, and a piece my mother told me never to sell.
My mother would take it with us wherever we were living, and it seemed almost attached to her since before I can even remember. And while I would always try to research it, I could recover no glimpse of its past or what time period it came from.
A small crack lines the inside curve of the trunk, but the faint line only adds to its allure.
As a teen, I would look deep within its green sheen searching for the feeling it gave me.
Hoping it might be something tangible that I could wrap my hands around.
But delicate things don’t yield to the kind of wanting I carry.