Chapter 3 - THE LOCKET
The locket was not especially valuable.
Maybe twelve hundred dollars.
Its value lived elsewhere.
Isabelle’s grandmother gave it to her at sixteen.
Inside were two photographs.
One of Isabelle as a child with her mother.
The second I added after Isabelle died.
Isabelle holding baby Grace.
The trust schedule identified it as IM-04.
Harrington’s care plan specifically allowed Grace to wear it at supervised family events once she was old enough not to lose it.
At four, she wore it rarely.
The wedding was her idea.
“Mommy comes too.”
That sentence hurt.
It also seemed healthy enough to me.
I asked her child therapist.
She said:
“If Grace wants to wear a small object associated with her mother, there is no reason to treat that as disloyal to your future wife.”
So I told Evelyn.
She smiled.
“Of course she can.”
Three weeks later, she changed her mind.
“Maybe not during photographs.”
Why?
“The locket clashes with the flower-girl dress.”
I thought she was joking.
She was not.
I said:
“She wears it.”
Then:
“Maybe during the ceremony she could put it in her pocket.”
“She does not have pockets.”
“Then give it to a maid.”
“No.”
“Vincent, I’m not trying to erase Isabelle.”
May you like
I had not accused her yet.
Interesting that she reached for the word first.
