Chapter 5

In the cab home, I booked the next available flight to San Francisco.

The house was dark when I arrived. Ethan wasn't back.

I took out my suitcase and packed my documents and a few changes of clothes. I left the gifts he'd bought me where they were.

Then I took off the ring and set it on the nightstand.

There was one thing left: the silver locket my mother had given me.

I opened the drawer where I kept it.

The space was empty.

I checked the drawer below it, then the closet. I searched the room twice before going into Ethan's study. It wasn't there, either.

Back in the bedroom, I sat on the small sofa and called him.

When I was sick in middle school, my mother had spent weeks finding a jeweler who could build a silver locket around the only photograph we had of the two of us. She had the back engraved: You are never alone.

It was the only thing of hers I had left.

Ethan answered. Rain hissed down the line.

“Have you seen my silver locket?” I asked. “Did you put it somewhere?”

He paused.

“I have it.”

Relief made me close my eyes.

“Then bring it home. Please be careful. It's my mom's—”

“Claire.” His voice was hoarse. “I gave it to Vanessa.”

For a moment, I couldn't understand what he'd said.

“She's been having nightmares. She can't sleep. You said the locket helped you feel calm. I couldn't stand seeing her like that, so I let her wear it.”

Tears ran down my face.

“My mother got that for me.”

I remembered being too feverish to sit up while Mom fastened it around my neck.

“I had this made just for you,” she'd told me. “It holds the two of us. Don't ever let anyone else wear it.”

I'd shown it to Vanessa in high school. She knew what Mom had said.

I'd told Ethan, too, when we moved in together. I wouldn't even let him touch it. Only Mom and I had ever held it.

When I touched the locket, I could remember Mom putting it on me. It was the closest I could get to having her there.

“Do you understand what that locket—”

“I know,” Ethan said.

He remembered. He'd taken it anyway.

I heard rustling. Then Vanessa was on the line.

“Claire, I'm sorry. I'll bring it back right now. Please don't be angry.”

Her voice shook.

“I can manage the nightmares. I don't have to wear it.”

Wind struck the microphone. There was a small, sharp crack.

Neither of them spoke.

Then Vanessa started crying.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It slipped. I didn't mean to—”

My phone fell out of my hand and hit the floor.

I slid off the sofa after it. I could hear them calling my name, but I couldn't make myself pick it up.

“Claire?”

“Claire, please.”

I bent over my knees. My ears were ringing, and I couldn't get a full breath.

I didn't scream. I didn't ask her to explain it again. I stayed on the floor, trying to understand that the last thing my mother had left me was broken.

When I could stand, I took my phone and my suitcase.

I looked around the bedroom. There was nothing else I wanted to take.

Then I walked out of the house where I'd lived with Ethan for seven years.