With his hand still on it, he went on. “It’s a snuff box and it belonged to his great-great grandfather. I’m not sure what it was worth in 1956 when it was given to me, but I had it appraised in the seventies when all the violence on the streets got out of hand. At the time I was thinking of taking my family and disappearing and wanted to see how far it would take us.”
“How much was it worth then?” I asked curiously.
“One-point-one million.”
Shocked, I gasped. “And you leave that in your dresser? Shouldn’t you lock it up?”
“Na, everyone thinks it’s just a cheap box.”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d had no idea.
Moving past its history, he opened it up and took out two key rings. With shaky fingers he managed to pocket one of the keys before holding the other up to show me. “This key is to a safety deposit box at the Chase Bank over on Washington Street near Franklin Park. Do you know which bank I’m talking about?”
“Yeah, I know where it is. The one on the corner of Park Avenue.”
“That’s the one. Inside that safe deposit box is your grandmother’s engagement ring and our wedding bands. I want you to take them and when you’re ready, you give that diamond to that girl of yours.”
I stared dumbly at him.
He put the key ring back inside the box and handed the box to me. “I don’t have as much to give you as your grandfather Ryan does, but I want you to take this. Use it if you ever need to. Think of it as a security blanket, like I did.”
Unease washed through me and I shoved it back his way. “What’s all this about?”
Sensing my worry, he reassured me. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and now that you found the girl you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, it seemed like the right time.”
The box had somehow transferred into my hands. “Gramps, Elle and I just met. We’re nowhere near ready to get married.”
He patted my hand. “Time isn’t what matters; knowing she’s the one is the only thing that does. Sure, take some time to get to know each other, but don’t wait too long, Logan. Life can pass you by so quickly.”
“Are you sure you want to give me Grandma’s ring?”
He eased back in his chair. “Millie wanted so much to see you grow up. And when she found out the cancer was going to take her, she hated that she was going to miss it. She made me promise to give the ring to you when the time was right.”
Words stuck in my throat.
“Promise me you won’t wait too long. Promise me, Logan.”
For him, I found the words. “I promise, Gramps. And I’ll bring her by next week.”
His dark eyes glinted with contentment. “I’d like that.”
“Is there something going on?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Somehow I managed to convey what I’d always felt in my heart and gestured between the two of us. “Gramps, this means more to me than all the money in the world.”
His smile was bright and prideful as he looked at me. Then he closed his eyes, and shortly after that he dozed off.
I left his room with another knot in my gut—something just didn’t seem right.
ELLE
Spring was in early bloom this year.
The breeze was light and cool.
The air fragrant.
The landscape almost indescribably beautiful.
From the rich, vibrant colors of azaleas, rhododendrons, and tulips bursting across the adjacent meadow to the fence separating this holy ground from the wildness beyond, with its overabundance of yellow daffodils growing against it.
The grass, too, was picture perfect. Although barely green, it was still soft and welcoming. And each building had planter boxes outside its windows filled with hundreds of purple violets.
Then there were the pathways. They were made of smooth gray stones that peeked out beneath a mat of leggy clover and dandelions. The dandelions. The reason I picked this location over so many others Michael had suggested.
Green Meadows was a small cemetery on the west side of Boston in Watertown, and although Michael thought it was too small and too far, I thought it was perfect. It reminded me of my childhood, of my sister and me running through the fields, picking dandelions and blowing on them.
Perhaps sensing in a way that I knew what Lizzy would prefer, Michael had conceded, and Green Meadows was the place we’d laid my sister to rest. The funeral gathering was small and nondenominational, the sermon short, and the gravestone marker was simple. It read:
Elizabeth Sterling O’Shea
In loving memory
Anything else would have been hypocritical.
To say loving wife and mother would have been a lie. Lizzy had deserted her husband and child for a life she had somehow found more fulfilling. A life filled with drugs, sex, and money.
To say loving sister, well, since we hadn’t spoken in fifteen years. That said it all. The last time I saw my sister was when my mother died and I was lying in a hospital bed. She came to say goodbye and left me alone with our father, who by any definition was a monster.