I was standing in a pawnshop in Cape Girardeau, arguing with myself over whether a twelve-dollar toaster was worth buying, when I saw the locket. I stopped so abruptly that the woman behind me nearly walked into my shoulder.<\/p>\n
It sat beneath the glass among old watches, mismatched earrings, and a row of rings with faded price stickers. The silver had darkened with age. One side was scratched. The hinge was bent slightly inward, giving the little heart a crooked appearance that should have made it ordinary.<\/p>\n
Instead, my hands went cold.<\/p>\n
I knew that dent.<\/p>\n
I knew the tiny scrape along the bottom edge.<\/p>\n
And when the clerk lifted it from the tray at my request, I saw the initials inside.<\/p>\n
M.L. + R.T.<\/p>\n
For a moment, the shop disappeared. I was seventeen again, standing beside the Mississippi with wet grass beneath my shoes and tears running down my face. I could hear my mother's voice as clearly as if she were standing beside me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn't want you, Mary Lou.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had believed her.<\/p>\n
I had believed everything she told me that summer.<\/p>\n
The locket had been a gift from Russell Tate when we were sixteen. He had scratched our initials inside with a pocketknife, ruining the smooth silver surface because, in his words, nobody was going to mistake whose heart it was.<\/p>\n
I had laughed at him then.<\/p>\n
At seventeen, I threw it into the river.<\/p>\n
I watched the silver flash once in the afternoon light before the current swallowed it.<\/p>\n
I had never seen it again.<\/p>\n
Until that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you get this?\u201d I asked the clerk.<\/p>\n
He was a young man with dark hair and a name tag that said Evan. He glanced from the locket to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone brought it in today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
My voice sounded strange in my own ears. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d<\/p>\n
He gave me a puzzled look. \u201cPretty sure. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn't answer immediately. I was afraid that if I spoke too quickly, something inside me would break loose.<\/p>\n
I pointed at the initials.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put those there with someone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan looked again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean you owned this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did.\u201d<\/p>\n
He leaned against the counter. \u201cThen I guess you've had quite a day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned the locket over in his fingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's not really worth much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's marked forty.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll pay forty.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled faintly. \u201cYou really want it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He reached for the display tray.<\/p>\n
Then he stopped.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, the guy who brought it in said something.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan's expression changed. The casual curiosity disappeared.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said you wouldn't want the truth anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words seemed to strike somewhere behind my ribs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn't say anything. I thought it was an odd thing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho brought it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn older man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat's his name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he look like?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan scratched his jaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cGray beard. Thin. Used a cane. Blue jacket.\u201d<\/p>\n
My fingers tightened around the edge of the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he have a red baseball cap?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan's eyes narrowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stopped breathing.<\/p>\n
Russell had always worn red.<\/p>\n
Red Cardinals caps. Red flannel shirts. Even the battered pickup he'd borrowed from his uncle when we were seventeen had been red.<\/p>\n
There were reasonable explanations. Thousands of them.<\/p>\n
A man could own a red cap.<\/p>\n
A man could have a gray beard.<\/p>\n
A man could walk with a cane.<\/p>\n
That didn't make him Russell.<\/p>\n
Russell had been gone for forty-three years.<\/p>\n
At least, that's what I had believed.<\/p>\n
Evan placed the locket on the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked me something else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked if I knew a Mary Louise Turner.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
That was my maiden name.<\/p>\n
My married name was Mary Louise Bennett. Almost nobody called me Turner anymore. My mother was dead. My father had been gone for more than a decade. The people who had known me as Mary Louise Turner when I was young were almost all gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you tell him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said I didn't know anybody by that name.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I didn't.\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he say anything else?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan hesitated.<\/p>\n
That hesitation frightened me more than the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked if I knew anyone who had lived on Sycamore Street in 1981.\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened my eyes.<\/p>\n
Sycamore Street.<\/p>\n
The old house at 417.<\/p>\n
The house where I had grown up.<\/p>\n
The house where Russell had lived three doors away.<\/p>\n
The house where he had once climbed through my bedroom window because my mother had locked the front door before nine and he wanted to see me.<\/p>\n
The same boy who had kissed me on that bedroom floor and then looked terrified that I'd slap him.<\/p>\n
The same boy my father had found sitting with me on the front porch at midnight.<\/p>\n
The same boy I was told had abandoned me.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he tell you why he was asking?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat exactly did he say?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan looked uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said you deserved to know before he died.\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt a tremor pass through my hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he have a scar?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbove his left eyebrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan studied me.<\/p>\n
Then he nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
The room seemed to tilt.<\/p>\n
Russell had gotten that scar when he was thirteen after falling from his bicycle. It was barely noticeable unless you knew to look for it.<\/p>\n
I knew.<\/p>\n
I had kissed it once when he was sixteen and told him it made him look dangerous.<\/p>\n
He had said, \u201cGood. Maybe your father will finally leave us alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
I swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can't tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou saw him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it Russell Tate?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked down at the locket.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed something inside it that had not been there when I threw it away.<\/p>\n
There was a tiny folded strip of paper tucked behind the photograph compartment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is that?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan leaned closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn't see that.\u201d<\/p>\n
My fingers shook as I opened it.<\/p>\n
It wasn't paper.<\/p>\n
It was a hospital wristband.<\/p>\n
The plastic was yellowed and brittle.<\/p>\n
RUSSELL TATE.<\/p>\n
ST. ANNE'S.<\/p>\n
08\/19\/81.<\/p>\n
The date was the day after Russell supposedly left me.<\/p>\n
I stared at the name until the letters blurred.<\/p>\n
He had not run away with another girl.<\/p>\n
He had been in a hospital.<\/p>\n
For the first time in forty-three years, the story I had lived with began to crack.<\/p>\n
I paid for the locket without asking the price.<\/p>\n
Evan gave it to me in a small paper envelope.<\/p>\n
As I turned toward the door, he called after me.<\/p>\n
\u201cMrs. Bennett?\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked back.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was one more thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe man left a message.\u201d<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Tell her the river didn't take everything.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
My throat tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat else?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe left a receipt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAn old storage unit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCape Girardeau.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you have the address?\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
Then he hesitated again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me not to give it to you unless you came back for the locket.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he say?\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan lowered his voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018If she comes back, she's finally ready.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn't move.<\/p>\n
The man had expected me to recognize the locket.<\/p>\n
He had expected me to ask questions.<\/p>\n
He had expected me to come back.<\/p>\n
And suddenly the most frightening possibility wasn't that Russell might still be alive.<\/p>\n
It was that someone had been waiting forty-three years for me to remember.<\/p>\n
I was standing in a pawnshop in Cape Girardeau, arguing with myself over whether a twelve-dollar toaster was worth buying, when I saw the locket. I stopped so abruptly that … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7986,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions\/7986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}