…made it. My father. He made that locket for your mother in 1958.”
The jeweler, Mr. Price, opened the locket for me. Inside was a tiny photograph of my mother at nineteen, and a note in careful handwriting: “For Ellen. Whatever you choose, I’ll always be glad I met you. — Daniel.”
“My father was a young jeweler,” Mr. Price said quietly. “He was in love with a girl named Ellen. She married someone else. He told me about her once, when I was a boy. He said he made her a locket before she left. He never knew if she kept it.”
She had. For sixty years. My mother never told anyone.
Mr. Price had bought the locket from my sister, Diane, without knowing the story. When he opened it and saw his father’s handwriting, he’d put it aside. He’d been trying to find my mother’s family ever since.
He gave it back to me. He wouldn’t take a penny. “It was never hers to sell,” he said. “And it was never mine to keep.”
Then I went to the police with the photograph of the bracelet and the jeweler’s records. Diane had replaced seven pieces of my mother’s jewelry with copies over two years. The detective recovered four of them. Diane was charged with theft.
On Christmas morning, I gave my daughter the real sapphire bracelet. I also showed her the locket and told her the story of the jeweler who loved her grandmother. She cried. Then she asked if she could wear the locket on her wedding day someday. I told her that’s exactly what it’s for.
