Their quiet voices faded as they reached the top of the stairs.
I sat alone in the kitchen, the single overhead light casting long shadows across the floorboards.
The silver ring and the torn paper slip remained on the table, looking small and dangerous under the light.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.
Chris had been my best friend for thirty years.
He was the one who had driven me to the beach that afternoon.
He was the one who had suggested we take the old coastal road instead of the highway.
I dialed his number.
The phone rang once, the sound echoing in the quiet kitchen.
Then twice.
Then three times, the long, empty tones stretching out the minutes.
“Hey, this is Chris,” his gruff voice said from the speaker.
The sound of a truck engine idled in the background of his old recording.
“Leave a message at the honk.”
The beep sounded, sharp and clear.
I did not speak.
I sat there in the quiet house, staring at the glowing screen of my phone as Chris’s voicemail message repeats.
The morning light through the high windows of the Oakhaven Diner was yellow and thick with dust.
Chris slid into the corner booth across from me, his dark canvas work shirt already smelling of motor oil and cold grease from his garage.
He did not look at the table, but his right hand immediately went to his pocket, the brass truck keys inside jingling against his pocket knife.
“You called three times last night, Artie,” he said, his voice flat.
“The girls were asleep when I got your voicemail,” I said, setting my coffee cup down so hard a black circle splashed onto the clean laminate.
I reached into my breast pocket and pulled out the small silver signet ring, placing it gently in the center of the table.
Beside the ring, I laid the torn strip of yellowed paper I had cut from the pink sailboat towel.
The paper was brittle, its top right corner missing in a jagged tear that looked years old.
Chris looked down at the ring, and the jingling in his pocket stopped instantly.
His face, usually red from the heat of his garage, seemed to lose its color under his graying stubble.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“They were stitched inside the double hems of the towels,” I said.
“Both of them, Chris.”
He reached out a thick finger, his nail black with embedded grease, and tapped the silver ring.
“It is just a cheap trinket,” he said, though he did not pick it up.
“It is a heavy signet ring with a capital G engraved on the face,” I said.
“Helen had a smaller one just like it in her jewelry box.”
