Everyone Had a Key but Me novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Mended

Claire's POV

The restorer rang our bell at four o'clock on a Thursday, three weeks to the day.

He was a small man in a grey coat who had flown across an ocean for the first time in his life.

He stood on the step holding a flat leather case in both hands, and his eyes went past me to Gabe in the hall.

"You promised me three weeks," he said, in careful English. "I wished to keep my word."

He turned to me.

"The gentleman said he would put them in your hand himself. I think this is better. I will."

Gabe stepped back to let him in.

"Thank you," he said, and his voice cracked.

We sat at the kitchen table, the three of us, in the first week of December.

Our table.

Our window onto a bare garden.

The old man opened the case on the wood and turned it toward me.

The silver chain lay on dark velvet, brighter than I remembered.

The oval of glass was new and clear.

Under it was my mother's face.

It had been whole in the picture all my life, and then it had been in two halves on a windowsill.

Now a line of gold thinner than a hair ran down the middle of the portrait, from her hairline to her chin.

"I could have made it vanish," the restorer said. "A little paint. I asked the gentleman. He said to ask you."

I touched the line.

"Leave it," I said.

"Yes?"

"Please. It's the one that happened."

He smiled, and fastened the clasp around my wrist himself.

It fit exactly.

The bracelet knocked once against the bone, as it had against my cheek when I was five.

I cried then, without any sound.

The old man looked at the garden for a long time.

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