Chapter 3: The Silver Locket
Katherine reached into the pocket of her silk robe and withdrew a small, tarnished silver pendant suspended on a worn cord. She placed it into Clara’s palm, folding the girl's fingers over the cold metal.
"Open it, child," Katherine said.
Clara clicked the corroded clasp with her thumbnail. Inside, protected behind yellowed mica, was a tiny black-and-white photobooth picture from an amusement pier: a nineteen-year-old Bennett, grinning with reckless youth, his arm wrapped tightly around a radiant, laughing Evelyn.
"Your father sold his motorcycle to buy her that locket for her eighteenth birthday," Katherine said softly, looking at her son. "She wore it until the morning she died."
Bennett felt a hot knot tighten behind his eyes. He remembered that night on the pier—the smell of fried dough, the salty Atlantic wind, the cheap copper coin they had flattened on the train tracks. He had believed Evelyn had moved on, married a shopkeeper in Ohio, and forgotten the reckless boy from the wrong side of the tracks. He had convinced himself that abandoning his hometown had saved her from his own downward spiral.
"Why didn't you write to me?" Bennett asked, taking a slow, hesitant step into the room. "When you found out she was sick?"
"Because you were a stranger on billboard advertisements," Clara said, wiping her face with the cuff of her navy uniform. "Everyone in the county knew Bennett Sterling, the real estate mogul who bought out the old rail yards. My mother spent twelve hours a day cleaning motel rooms. She had her pride. She taught me to have mine."
"Clara," Bennett whispered, falling to one knee a few feet away from her, the tile biting into his trousers. "I didn't know. I swear on my life, I never knew you drew breath."
"I know," Clara said, looking down at the worn silver locket. "Mrs. Sterling showed me the letters she intercepted. The ones my mother sent to your base in San Diego that never left this house."
May you like
Bennett swung his head toward his mother. Katherine met his gaze without flinching, accepting the blade of his silent judgment.
"That is why I cut my hair today, Bennett," Katherine murmured. "To shed the vanity of a woman who thought she could direct the lives of human beings like pieces on a chessboard. My pride is gone. All that remains is the truth."
