She slid a plain white envelope across the table.
“Open it, please.”
Inside was a receipt from a jewelry store on Michigan Avenue, dated that morning.
Refund: $1,240.00.
Returned to original form of payment.
Behind it was a handwritten note in careful looping letters:
This belongs to your household. I’m sorry I ever wore it.
I looked up.
“You returned the necklace.”
“I couldn’t keep it. Every time I put it on, I felt like I was wearing a lie.”
She swallowed.
“Last week my son found me crying in the car. He’s eight. He asked what was wrong, and I said grown-ups make mistakes, and the brave thing is to fix what you can. And then I sat there thinking, I can’t teach him that and keep wearing the necklace.”
Chapter 12
The coffee shop hummed around us.
The espresso machine hissed.
Someone laughed near the door.
I looked at this woman I had every reason to dislike and felt my anger sitting beside me like a patient dog.
Quiet.
Present.
“I need you to know something,” Vanessa said. “He told me you knew. He said you’d accepted it, that you’d moved on and it was just paperwork. And I believed him, because it was easier. I told myself the little things that didn’t fit weren’t my business.”
Her eyes filled.
“That doesn’t make it okay. I knew he was married. I’m not asking you to excuse me. I just didn’t want you to think I’d looked you in the eye at Christmas knowing the whole truth. I didn’t have it either.”
“I know,” I said.
