I stared at the letter.
Without thinking, I reached beneath my shirt and pulled out the necklace I had worn since childhood.
My parents had told me it was an old family keepsake.
The small pendant had been broken in half long before I received it. I had never understood why they had kept it.
Mr. Reed looked at it.
His face changed.
“Eleanor told me you would be wearing that.”
He reached into the envelope and removed a tiny velvet box.
Inside was the other half.
I placed the two pieces together.
They fitted perfectly.
A thin line marked where the necklace had been broken, but the design was unmistakable.
I felt the world tilt beneath me.
Eleanor wasn’t simply a woman I had befriended.
She was the woman who had given birth to me.
She had sat beside me for months, listened to my jokes, stolen biscuits from my plate, and let me read novels to her.
