The initials in the receipt book belonged to someone named Marla. I didn’t recognize the name, so I asked my husband who she was. He said she was a woman who helped him at the swap meets and that the receipts were nothing important. I pointed to the dates and asked why my grandmother’s jewelry appeared over and over again. He said he’d only been holding things for people. Then I showed him the ring. His face changed immediately. He asked me where I’d found it, and when I told him, he said Kaylee had brought it back months ago. I reminded him that Kaylee had pawned it and never returned it. He didn’t answer.
The next morning I called the pawnshop listed on the original receipt. They still had the transaction in their system. Kaylee had pawned my grandmother’s ring for several hundred dollars, but the person who later redeemed it wasn’t Kaylee. It was my husband. I asked for the date. He had picked it up three days after I confronted Kaylee at our house. I asked why he had never told me he’d recovered it. He said he didn’t want another fight. Then I asked about the other two pieces in his lockbox. The woman on the phone checked their records. Both had been pawned by people connected to my husband — and both had been redeemed by the same person.
I went through the receipt book again that night. Every redemption had Marla’s initials beside it. I finally asked my husband who she was. He said she was “just someone from the swap meets.” I asked why she had been handling jewelry that belonged to my family. He wouldn’t look at me. Then I found one final entry at the very back of the book. It wasn’t a piece of jewelry. It was a description of my grandmother’s wedding necklace, the one I keep locked in my bedroom. The date beside it was last month. I ran upstairs and opened the drawer. The necklace was gone. And underneath where it had been, there was a handwritten note: “Already paid. Ask your husband where the money went.”
