The Imperfect Marriage novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Locket

Ross came around the end of a row of cars and saw Lowell.

I raised one hand without looking at him.

"Mine," I said.

He stopped thirty feet away.

I loved him for it, and I filed that thought somewhere I wouldn't have to look at it.

Lowell glanced at Ross and smirked.

"Does he let you speak for yourself?"

"He doesn't have a say. Neither do you."

I took a step toward the silver SUV.

"That's my mother's locket. You broke into the apartment."

"I have a key. It's my apartment."

"My name is on the lease too."

"Come home, Dag. We forget the week. I'll tell my dad you were in shock. You can have the wedding at the lake next month, the one you wanted."

He swung the chain slowly.

"Or you stay with the shipyard fella and watch me get your father's treatment pulled."

"You can't pull it. It's paid."

"Paid by who? By him?" He laughed. "You think he'll keep paying when you get boring? He'll drop you the day the paper goes through."

I did not answer, because that was exactly what we'd agreed.

My stomach turned over.

Lowell saw it.

"There it is," he said, softer. "You know I'm right. So come on."

I walked right up to him.

Three coworkers stood at the smokers' bench by the ambulance bay, pretending not to watch.

Beyond them, a security guard in a blue jacket was eating a granola bar.

I looked at Lowell, and then I looked at the guard, and I said in my loudest work voice, "Sir! This man broke into my apartment and stole my mother's locket!"

Everything in the parking lot stopped.

The guard dropped the granola bar.

"That's not true," Lowell said. "She's my fiancée. She's upset."

"I'm not your fiancée. I'm married to someone else."

I turned to the guard.

"There's an engraving inside. Two sets of initials and a date. Ask him what they are."

The guard held out his hand.

Lowell stood there with the chain over his fingers and his face going white.

"Go ahead," I said. "Tell him."

He couldn't.

The guard took the chain out of his hand, opened the locket with his thumb, and read, "M.L. and A.L., June twelfth, nineteen ninety-eight."

"Those are my parents," I said.

The guard looked at Lowell.

"Sir, I'm going to need to walk you off the property."

"This is ridiculous."

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