The yellow plastic crate on the kitchen table held three coffee mugs and a stack of mismatched saucers. Below the floorboards, the heavy commercial mixers at Gable Bakery hummed their low, rhythmic vibration that started every morning at four. The smell of rising yeast and scorched flour drifted up through the floor vents, warm and heavy, clinging to the yellowed wallpaper of the small kitchen.
Mrs. Gable swept a small drift of white flour toward the doorway, her broom making a soft, scraping sound against the linoleum. She stopped near the radiator and looked at the half-empty cupboard.
“You can leave the heavy iron skillet, Claire,” Mrs. Gable said, her voice dry from fifty years of flour dust. “The next girl won’t mind it.”
“Thank you, but I should take everything with me,” I said.
I reached toward my collarbone, my fingers searching for the small, heavy silver pendant that usually hung there. My thumb slid over the empty links of the silver chain instead. The tiny metal loop was intact, but the silver oval, the one my grandmother gave me before she died, was gone.
“Did you lose something?” Mrs. Gable asked, her broom pausing again.
“The pendant from my chain,” I said, my voice remaining level as I checked the hem of my sweater. “It must have slipped off when I was packing the bedroom closet.”
Mrs. Gable leaned on her broom, her eyes kindly but tired. “Some things are better left behind in an old house, Claire.”
“I would like to find it before the movers arrive at noon,” I said, closing the cardboard box.
“They won’t be long,” she said, looking toward the narrow stairwell.
I folded the top flaps of the cardboard box and sealed them with a single strip of brown tape, the sound sharp and loud in the small kitchen. I carried the box to the landing, where three other crates sat stacked against the peeling wallpaper.
The brick office of the Rowan Women Foundation smelled of damp wool and old paper. Ethan sat behind the cherry wood desk we had chosen together three years ago, his heavy gold watch catching the light from the tall window that overlooked the main street of Oak Creek.
