I heard from someone that she told Darren she felt “unwelcome.”
I remember standing in the pantry storage room, holding a box of canned beans, and thinking, Good. At last, she understands the feeling.
Toby noticed it too.
One afternoon, about a month later, he got into my car after practice and buckled his seat belt.
“She wasn’t there,” he said.
“At pickup?”
“Anywhere. Not in the lot. Not in the stands. Nowhere.”
I pulled away from the curb. “How do you feel about that?”
He looked out the window for a second. “Like maybe I can breathe again.”
I reached over at the red light and squeezed his hand once.
He squeezed back.
I did get the locket in the end, by the way.
A week after the auction, Mrs. Hargrove called and explained that Vanessa had never come to collect it. She had paid the bid through Darren, apparently through clenched teeth, but wanted nothing to do with the actual item.
Mrs. Hargrove said, “Since the donation was made and the item was abandoned, the committee voted to return it to you.”
When I opened the velvet box at my kitchen table, I cried.
Not because of the metal itself. Because of what it meant. Memory. Family. The fact that not everything precious has to be lost forever just because someone mean lays a hand on it.
