Leo was eight years old, and he spent every Saturday at Grandma June's house in the country. Leo's favorite thing was kicking his ball against the backyard wall. “Watch out for my flowerpots,” Grandma always called from the window.
Her favorite was a blue pot, painted by hand with little white birds. That afternoon, Leo kicked the ball way too hard. It bounced off the wall, flew through the air, and… crash!
The blue flowerpot fell to the ground and broke into three pieces. Luckily, the red geranium was fine, its roots still hugging the soil. Leo looked up at the window. Grandma wasn't there. Nobody had seen.
Without thinking, he put the plant in a bucket and hid the pieces behind the watering can. At dinner, Grandma said, “That's strange. My blue flowerpot is gone.” “I don't know anything about it,” Leo said, staring at his bowl of soup.
And Grandma didn't ask again.
But that night in bed, Leo just couldn't fall asleep. He rolled to one side. He rolled to the other. He counted sheep and kept losing count. His chest felt funny, as if he had swallowed a stone.
The smell of chamomile tea drifted up the stairs. Grandma was still awake. Leo got up, put on his slippers, and crept very slowly down the stairs.
Grandma was in the kitchen, with her teacup and her round glasses. “Can't sleep, sweetheart?” she asked. Leo swallowed hard. His voice shook a little.
“Grandma, I broke the flowerpot with my ball. And then I said I didn't know anything.” Grandma took off her glasses and looked at him for a long, quiet moment. Then she opened her arms, and Leo snuggled into them.
“Thank you for telling me,” she said softly. “That was very brave.” And the stone in his chest melted like a sugar cube in warm milk. “You know what?” Grandma added. “Broken things can be fixed, too.”
She took a tube of glue and a tiny jar of gold paint out of a drawer. Together they glued the three pieces back together, very carefully, on the kitchen table. Then Leo painted the crack gold, slowly, as if he were drawing a river of sunshine.
“Now it's even prettier,” said Grandma. “And it has a story.”
They replanted the geranium and set the pot on Leo's bedroom windowsill. Leo climbed into bed, light as a feather. The moon made the golden crack shine. Goodnight, Leo…
