I slide to the floor with a slouch

Most of the decor that was in here when I was a child was replaced after my grandmother remarried. The faded family portrait of my teenaged father and his parents that once consumed the entire wall above the bed was replaced with a fancy bed frame with a mirror and compartments for jewelry. I take a seat on the bed and examine the frame, planning out where my belongings will fit, and I notice a glimpse of something in one of them. I reach in and retrieve a silver chain necklace with three white pearls. As I run my fingers over the small pearls I determine that they are in fact real, they are separated from each other to prevent them from damaging one another and they don’t have the plastic texture or perfect roundness of the beads used as imitation, instead each is smooth to the touch and has slight imperfections in their shape the way organic pearls do. My grandmother never wore jewelry like this; I would’ve remembered this piece, but no one has been here since she and her husband moved out, opting to spend their golden years touring the world with each other on a never ending string of cruises. The necklace continues to perplex me as I run through all its possible owners in my head, if it had belonged to Nana she would have taken it with her, or if she had forgotten it she would have forgotten in the master bedroom in a safe place not in the guest bedrooms bed frame, it could be my mothers forgotten after a visit but I can’t imagine her leaving it here from her last visit to now without noticing. I shake my head with a sigh, it could belong to someone on Grandys side, I don’t know enough about any of them to rule that out, even if it is theirs I don’t have any contact information for them. I slide the necklace into my pocket for the moment to allow myself to return to unpacking.

© 2025 Michelle Golden (Audiobook): 9798318153358

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Audiobook: 24 September 2025