That circle marks where the final piece of a puzzle showed up days after we’d finished it. That’s our routine: leave a completed puzzle out for a bit before packing it up.

Often there’s a piece missing. Sometimes more than one. For this particular puzzle, we’d been down on hands and knees, combing the rug. More than once. I may have emptied the barrel of the vacuum, looking for it, also to no avail. We thought the piece was well and thoroughly missing.

And so, when it showed up on the floor a couple of inches from the edge of the rug a couple of days later – a very visible placement, I don’t need to add – all I could think was, “Dan.”

There’s a specialty puzzle shop on Pearl Street in Boulder that features a big dish of stray puzzle pieces. Customers are welcome to take one. On one of our last two trips to Boulder, we went in with Danny so he could take a piece. It was something he did. Here are three pieces that we found among his belongings.

And then this.

I was cleaning our front door, a task I don’t do often but certainly have done many times over the years. Never before, however, have I noticed Danny’s signature scratched into the acrylic. But there it was, plain as day.

That’s part of why when not long afterward a robin flapped down three feet from me in the garden and looked at me, I said, “Hello Dan.” And I heard back, “Hi Mom.”

PS I forgot to mention that a couple of days ago while taking a walk, I dipped my hand in my cardigan pocket and was surprised to find a puzzle piece there.