Her hand shot out, and she caught the thin silver chain at my throat, the one with Neal’s wedding band hanging from it, close against my collarbone.
“And this,” she said sweetly.
“This is a family heirloom.”
“His grandfather wore that ring.”
“It belongs with us.”
She pulled.
The chain bit into the back of my neck, hot and sharp, and snapped.
The ring fell.
It rang on the stone floor, once, twice, a small gold sound in that enormous quiet, and rolled in a half circle toward Becky’s shoe.
Jeanette bent, with the elegant economy of a woman who has never been out of breath, and picked it up.
She dropped it into her handbag, a black leather Birkin that cost more than my car, and she snapped the clasp.
“Oh dear,” said Becky.
“Careless.”
I could not breathe.
It was like being struck from behind.
Twenty years I had watched that ring on his hand.
