My mother-in-law came to borrow my gold jewelry. She said she needed it to put on a good show at my brother-in-law's engagement dinner.
I gave her a pair of gold earrings and told her the rest had already been melted into a locket for the baby I was carrying.
She took them with a smile, then turned around and stole my father's keepsake, had it melted into a thick gold bracelet, and gave it to that rich socialite girl marrying into the family.
When it all came out, she refused to admit a thing. She stood there with her hands on her hips and screamed at me.
"So what if I took it? You're an orphan, no mother, no father, knocked up and shipped off to marry into a family in some town far from home. You think you've got the nerve to divorce us?"
My husband talked me down too. "We're all family. There's no need to blow this up into something."
I nodded and smiled.
Then I turned around, ended the pregnancy, and made a phone call.
What they didn't know was that my father's keepsake was a first-class war medal, the Medal of Honor, paid for with his life.
Destroying it carries a prison sentence.
...
"Elena Swanson, honey, let me run something by you."
My mother-in-law pushed open the bedroom door and sat down across from me, all smiles, though her eyes kept drifting toward my vanity.
"Steve's getting engaged in a few days. The girl's family has money and connections. I figure we can't let them look down on us, right?"
"Those gold pieces of yours. Could you lend them to me, just to help us put on a good show?"
Something in my chest dropped.
That jewelry was what my mother left me.
She was a nurse. She died during a flood, in the rescue work.
Before she went, she held my hand and told me she'd saved that gold her whole life, and that I should keep it tucked away for when I married.
When I got married, the Dickersons didn't put up a single dollar for a bride price. They said both my parents were dead, that there was no one to stand up for me, so a quiet little ceremony was good enough.
Now Steve was getting married, and even the things my mother left me had to be borrowed?
But I kept my patience and dug a pair of gold earrings out of the drawer.
"Mom, this is all that's left. The rest I had a jeweler melt down a while back and made into a locket for the baby."
The smile on her face stiffened. She took the earrings, looked them over, and slipped them into her pocket without ceremony.
"Fine. Something's better than nothing."
She stood up, and her gaze landed on the bundle of red cloth on my nightstand.
"Oh, right. What about that gold medal your father left you? Bring that out too. All that shine, it'd make a gorgeous bracelet."
The blood rushed straight to my head.
That medal was my father's keepsake.
He died carrying out a secret mission.
At the memorial service, one of his comrades placed that first-class war medal into my mother's hands himself.
"This is what Merlin Swanson gave his life for."
After my mother passed, the medal came to me.
After I married, I wrapped it carefully in red cloth and kept it by my bed, where I could see it every day.
"Mom, that's my father's keepsake. It stays where it is." My voice had already gone cold.
She didn't seem to care. She just reached for it.
"A dead man's things are bad luck to keep around anyway. Melt it into a gold bracelet for your brother-in-law's wedding and at least it's good for something."
I grabbed her wrist.
"I said no."
She bared her teeth at my grip and yanked her hand free.
"Fine, fine, fine. Your things, your call. An orphan marries into our family, eats our food, lives under our roof, and still puts on airs over lending out a few trinkets."
I reached straight into her pocket and took the earrings back.
"You're right, Mom. A dead person's things really are bad luck."
"So you can leave these earrings here too. They came down from my grandmother to my mother. They belonged to a dead person as well."
And I locked the earrings in the drawer.
Her face flushed deep red. She opened her mouth, then turned and slammed the door on her way out.
That night, my husband Vincent Dickerson came home from work. My mother-in-law must have gone running to him, because the second he walked in he came straight to find me.
