Chapter 4 - THE ORCHID RING
The silver orchid ring belonged to my mother.
At least that was what Grandma Ruth always told me.
Claire Bennett died when I was six.
Car accident.
Rainy night.
No father in the picture.
No large extended family.
Just Grandma and me.
Claire had been twenty-nine.
The ring was one of the few things saved after the crash.
I was too young to remember much about her.
Vanilla perfume.
Red lipstick.
A laugh that sounded slightly breathless.
And a silver ring shaped like an orchid.
Grandma kept it in a small velvet box until my eighteenth birthday.
“She wanted you to have this.”
“Who gave it to her?”
Grandma hesitated.
“Family.”
“What family?”
“People who stopped behaving like one.”
That was all she would say.
I asked over the years.
She refused.
Once, after too much wine at Christmas, Grandma said:
“Your mother chose you over people who made her feel like she had to ask permission to exist.”
The sentence stayed with me.
But Ruth died before Lily was born.
Whatever history she had protected went with her.
I wore the orchid ring on a chain because it was too fragile for daily wear.
Richard disliked it.
Called it “old junk.”
Once offered to replace it with diamonds.
I refused.
May you like
The ring was the only object in my life that belonged to the woman I barely remembered.
Now Julian Sterling was staring at it as though he knew her.
