I picked it up like it was made of glass.
For the first time in a decade…
I was holding something my daughter had almost certainly touched.
Whether she’d worn it yesterday…
Last week…
Or years ago…
I didn’t know.
But hope—dangerous, painful hope—came rushing back stronger than it had in years.
As I hurried toward my car, clutching the bracelet against my chest, only one thought echoed through my mind.
If Nana’s bracelet had found its way back to me…
Maybe my daughter still could too.
Part 2
I don’t remember most of the drive home.
I remember stopping at a red light and realizing I was crying.
I remember checking the rearview mirror as if someone might be following me.
And I remember keeping one hand wrapped around the bracelet the entire time, terrified that if I loosened my grip, it would disappear.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, my palms were damp and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.
Felix was in the kitchen.
He stood at the counter with his back to me, pouring the last of the coffee into the chipped blue mug we’d owned since the year Nana was born. The handle had been glued twice, but he refused to throw it away.
“You were gone a while,” he said without turning.
His tone was ordinary.
Too ordinary.
I closed the door behind me and stared at him.
For ten years, I had watched my husband carry grief in silence. I had mistaken his distance for exhaustion. His anger for pain. His refusal to discuss Nana for a different way of mourning.
But now, with the bracelet digging into my palm, something about the way he stood there made me uneasy.
“Felix,” I said.
He glanced over his shoulder.
“What?”
I stepped closer and opened my hand.
“Look at this.”
At first, he only frowned.
Then his eyes dropped to the gold band.
Every trace of sleepiness disappeared from his face.
His shoulders stiffened.
The coffee pot remained suspended above the mug.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
Not What is that?
Not Is that Nana’s?
Where did you get that?
The difference struck me immediately.
I walked closer.
“You recognize it.”
His gaze shifted from the bracelet to my face.
“I asked where you got it.”
“The flea market.”
The coffee pot clicked against the counter as he set it down.
“You bought it?”
“A man was selling it.”
Felix’s jaw tightened.
“He said a young woman brought it to him this morning. Tall. Slim. A lot of curly hair.”
I tried to keep my voice steady, but hope had already taken hold of it.
“Felix, that sounds like Nana.”
He stepped back.
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“You know exactly what.”
I turned the bracelet over and held the engraving toward him.
“For Nana, from Mom and Dad,” I read aloud. “We had this made for her graduation. She wore it the day she disappeared.”
He didn’t look at the inscription.
He didn’t need to.
“People steal things,” he said.
“That bracelet was never reported stolen.”
“It could have ended up anywhere.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then help me find out.”
His expression hardened.
“Natalie, no.”
The word was so immediate and final that it stunned me.
“No?”
“I’m not doing this again.”
“Doing what?”
“Running after another rumor. Convincing ourselves every stranger is her. Calling detectives because someone thinks they saw a woman with curly hair.”
“This isn’t a rumor.”
“It’s a bracelet.”
“It’s her bracelet.”
“You don’t know that.”
My fingers closed around it.
“Yes, I do.”
“You want it to be hers.”
“It has her name inside it!”
He raised his voice.
“That doesn’t prove she’s alive!”
The kitchen fell silent.
Coffee had spilled over the rim of his mug and was spreading slowly across the counter, but neither of us moved to wipe it up.
I stared at my husband.
“I never said it proved she was alive.”
His face changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
A flicker of alarm.
I took another step toward him.
“I said someone sold it this morning.”
Felix rubbed both hands over his face.
“This is what I’m talking about. You find one object and suddenly you’re ready to tear open the whole case again.”
“The case should never have been closed.”
“It wasn’t closed.”
“It was forgotten.”
“By the police, maybe. Not by us.”
“Not by me,” I corrected.
His eyes snapped toward mine.
The words hung between us.
Cruel, but true.
