PART 2
“Mom,” I said quietly. “Where is Julia’s real ring?”
My mother stood up from the table. Her chin was shaking.
“I was going to buy it back,” she said. “I swear, I was going to buy it back.”
Chase sat down hard in his chair.
“Buy it back from where?”
It all came out in front of twenty people on Christmas Eve.
My mother had been hiding credit card debt for two years. Almost $30,000. A cruise. A new kitchen. Shopping she couldn’t afford. My father didn’t know.
In November, she’d let herself into my house while I was at work, taken Julia’s ring out of my closet, and sold it to a jewelry buyer across town for $11,000.
Then she’d paid a jeweler $300 to make a copy.
She gave the copy to Chase and told him it was “a family heirloom.” That way, she said, the ring was “still in the family,” and nobody would ever have to know.
Chase looked like he was going to be sick.
“You let me propose with a fake,” he said. “With a fake of Julia’s ring. In front of Imogen.”
Brooklyn quietly took off the copy and set it on the table.
My father, who hadn’t said a word all night, stood up and walked out of the room. We heard the back door close.
I didn’t say anything else to my mother that night. I picked up Imogen and her coat and took her home.
The next morning, Christmas Day, I called the police.
I gave them the appraisal certificate with the laser inscription number. I gave them my mother’s name.
Kentucky law requires jewelry buyers to hold purchased items for a waiting period before reselling them, so stolen property can be found.
The detective called me three days later.
“We found it,” he said. “It’s still in the safe.”
I picked up Julia’s ring on December 30th. Chip on the left prong. Little dent in the band.
“Always, J.”
I handed it to Imogen in the car. She held it for the whole drive home without saying a word.
My mother was charged with theft. I told the prosecutor I wouldn’t object to a plea deal if she paid back the jewelry buyer every dollar and never entered my house again.
She agreed. My father took the money out of their savings. Then he moved into the guest room.
I changed my locks on New Year’s Day.
In February, Chase came over alone.
“I’m so sorry, Dom,” he said. “To you. And to Imogen. I should have asked where that ring came from. I didn’t want to know.”
He proposed to Brooklyn again in March. With a ring he saved up for himself. Small. Simple. His.
He asked Imogen to stand next to Brooklyn at the wedding.
Imogen keeps her mom’s ring on a thin gold chain now. She wears it on special days. Her birthday. The first day of school. The anniversary of Julia’s death.
At Chase’s wedding, she wore it under her bridesmaid’s dress.
During the reception, Brooklyn came over and sat next to her.
“Your mom must have been amazing,” she said.
Imogen touched the ring through her dress.
“She was,” she said. “She still is.”
THE END.
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Some things aren’t “family property.” Some things are promises. And promises don’t belong to whoever has the key.
What would you have done if your mother sold your late wife’s ring? Tell us in the replies.
