I opened the lid.
For a second, my brain couldn’t make head or tails of what I was looking at.
It was a necklace.
The necklace looked childish, even mocking.
Handmade.
A thin cord strung with tiny pink and blue plastic baby bottles, miniature pacifiers, little diaper pins, and small beads shaped like rattles.
The necklace looked childish, even mocking. And more than anything, it made her intentions perfectly clear.
The whole table went silent.
I stared at it.
She reached over and lifted one of the little bottles between two fingers.
Susan laughed.
“Come on. It’s cute.”
My throat closed.
She reached over and lifted one of the little bottles between two fingers.
“Look how tiny these are.”
“Mom, what the heck is wrong with you?”
Nobody said anything.
Then Susan smiled at me.
“Since you’ll never need the real ones, I thought you should at least get to wear them.”
Thomas’s chair scraped backward.
“Mom, what the heck is wrong with you?”
Thomas’s anger flared before I could find my own voice.
My sister whispered, “Oh my God.”
Thomas’s anger flared before I could find my own voice.
I could feel my face burning.
But I refused to cry.
