Chapter 4: The Ring

On Monday morning, ten days after surgery, Reed walked into my office in front of my whole department.

I was at my desk with a spreadsheet open, sitting up very straight so my side wouldn't pull.

Cora's palm had stayed on my side all weekend, as if she had left a print there.

I told myself she had only been kind, and I did not believe it.

He didn't call ahead. He walked straight past the receptionist and stopped beside my monitor.

"I need the ring back," he said.

Twelve people at twelve desks stopped typing.

I looked up at him. He wore the gray quarter-zip I had bought him for his birthday.

"Good morning to you too," I said.

"My grandmother's ring. It's a family piece, Cosima. You can't just keep it."

"I haven't kept anything. You told me to leave my own apartment."

"I told you to have your things out. That's different."

"Is it."

My boss, a quiet woman who never raised her voice, came and stood in the door of her glass office with her coffee.

Reed noticed her, and for a second he considered lowering his voice.

Then he decided not to.

"Cora's getting stronger every day," he said, loudly.

"Her doctors want her to have something good to look forward to."

"The ring has been in my family for sixty years. I'd like to give it to the right person."

"The right person."

"Yes."

"My sister."

His ears went red. "Don't say it like that."

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