When your little brother Jimmy turned seven, your mother bought him a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle depicting a tranquil, sunlit lake ringed with lush reeds and cattails and dotted with colorful birds. With a scream of delight, Jimmy hopped to the wooden table in the family room and dumped all the pieces on it. He then dropped to his knees, eagerly searching for pieces to assemble the puzzle.

As his small hands scoured and rummaged among scattered puzzle pieces, you chuckled at how such simple things could make your restless brother so engaged. A mischievous thought crossed your nine-year-old mind. You knelt next to him, pretending to be checking on his progress. Sneakily, you wrapped a piece with a crimson semi-circle into your palm. After making sure he didn’t notice what you had done, you slipped away to your bedroom and tucked the piece among a jumble of books and folders on your desk.

When Jimmy clicked together all the pieces on the table into a colored collage, the little blank space on the top left stood out like an eyesore. The flamingo there missed the top of its head. He looked for the piece inside the puzzle box, under the table, and everywhere else in the family room. His frown amused you at first, but when you saw frustration in his eyes, guilt tugged at your heart. You only wanted to tease him, but you never anticipated he would be so sad.

You scurried to your room to retrieve the piece. But, to your surprise, your mother had cleaned and tidied up your cluttered desk. Frantically, you fumbled through your drawers and bookcases, your hands slick with cold sweat, your fingers cramping. You searched everywhere you could think of, but that tiny piece seemed to have vanished completely.

You returned to the family room, empty-handed, face burning. Jimmy was tearing apart the puzzle, a hint of red around the rims of his eyes. He tossed all the pieces back into the box and grumbled about the flawed product. You wanted to tell him the truth and apologize, but words clogged your throat. You comforted him that someday the piece would show up, even though you were not sure yourself.

Jimmy never touched that jigsaw puzzle again. In fact, he never played any jigsaw puzzles again. You knew the absence of that one missing piece still bothered him, just as it did you.

In 1963, you went to a liberal arts college on the West Coast, far away from your hometown. Two years later, Jimmy enlisted in the Marines. He wrote you a letter from his training camp and told you he was going to fight against communism in Vietnam. He believed it was the best way to show his patriotism. His tone was so enthusiastic that you could almost picture his eyes gleaming and his face aglow with excitement.

His letter left you with a prickle of unease. Deep down, the prospect of war weighed heavily on your heart. You thought about how to voice your concerns without making him feel bad. You waited for a couple of days. When finally picking up the pen, you found yourself still grappling for the right words, so you simply told him to stay safe.

When winter came, snow surging against the window and carpeting the road in front of your house, you clung to the hope that Jimmy would return home for the holidays. Since he was dispatched to Vietnam, you only received one letter from him, in which he told you about the intense heat and humidity there and how much he missed home. Although he didn’t mention anything about the battlefields, you could sense his worries and fear. Several months had passed since then. You wondered what his life was like now.

A week before Christmas, you got the devastating news that Jimmy was killed in a fierce battle at la Drang Valley. An artillery bomb detonated close to him, abruptly claiming his life. Your first reaction was disbelief, which morphed into a suffocating pain in your chest, intensifying with each breath.

The night before his body arrived back home, you flipped through your album filled with photos of toothy smiles of you and Jimmy. The images transported you to those carefree days—standing side by side beside your new bikes, ready to race along the neighborhood; cramming onto the puffy orange stool of Howard Johnson’s, with a handful of fried clams; striking a pose like Elvis Presley while belting out his “All Shook Up.”

Gently closing the album, you held it close to your chest as if you could feel Jimmy’s heartbeat. Faint moonlight streamed through the window, casting a cold edge to the air, freezing the moisture gathering in your eyes. You leaned against the wingback chair and pillowed your head on the top rail.

After a lingering moment, you stood up to wedge the album back into the bookshelf, accidentally knocking down a hardcover book. It hit the ground with a thud, pages sprawling open. A small cardboard scrap bounced out.

You knelt and picked it up—it was that puzzle piece you stole from Jimmy, the piece supposed to be the top of the flamingo’s head. You gripped it in your hand, a pang of regret washing over you. You hoped you had never taken it away from him or had given it to him when he desperately searched for it. You hoped he had got a chance to enjoy the full image of that tranquil lake. You hoped nothing had been too late—

At his funeral, Jimmy lay in his uniform, hands folded over his stomach, so peaceful as if in a deep slumber. You walked to his side and took a good look at his face. His forehead bore bruises and cuts, visible even with the makeup.

Your hand slipped into your pocket and took out the puzzle piece, gently laying it beside his shoulder. Its crimson color looked bright and raw, like a drop of blood.