Chapter 9: Sixty-One Thousand

Brett's mother knocked on our door at nine that night.

She stood in the hall under the yellow light with a suitcase on wheels and a small velvet box in her hand.

She looked ten years older than she had at Christmas.

Mom was in the armchair with her feet on a stool.

"Let her in," she called. "She's wet."

Brett's mother stepped inside and didn't sit.

"I'll say this standing," she said. "I should have said it a month ago."

"You don't have to," I said.

"I do."

She opened the velvet box.

The pearl bracelet lay inside, still warm from her pocket.

"I got this back from Kendra at the reception," she said. "I asked, and she handed it over with a smile. Then she said I'd given it to her first."

I looked at the pearls.

"It was always yours," she said. "I said so at Christmas. I let my son and that girl turn it into a prop."

She held it out.

Mom spoke before I could.

"Put it on the table."

Brett's mother did.

She sat down after all, on the very edge of the couch.

Her hands shook until she folded them.

"I have a check from my husband," she said. "Sixty-one thousand dollars. It's everything you paid toward the wedding."

"I can't take that."

"You can. It was never his money to spend." She took the check from her purse. "My husband says Brett can pay him back or lose the apartment."

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