Grace met her once.
She came home quiet afterward.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing bad.”
“Then why are you crying?”
Grace wiped her cheek.
“She reminded me of me.”
I understood.
Arthur did too.
When Grace told him, he sat silently for a long time.
Then he said, “Eleanor’s money finally reached where she meant it to go.”
Grace shook her head.
“Not just Eleanor’s.”
Arthur nodded.
“Not just Eleanor’s.”
I still have the photograph of Dad standing beside those blue trucks.
Arthur gave it to me when I turned eighteen.
On the back, beneath the old sentence about Dad asking the right questions, Arthur added another line.
So did his children.
For a long time, I believed returning the ring was the important thing we did that day.
Maybe it was.
But not because the ring was valuable.
The diamond had nothing to do with it.
