Page 42 of Mine

She leaned forward, still not even opening it. “Lan, your packaging is stunning and your place is just… your sense of style…. I’m so impressed and so happy for you.”

“Thanks.” He sighed. “I wanted to go green, you know, but the recycled boxes and bags just didn’t go, and so the brilliant man sitting at my right suggested we have bags that people can bring back or trade up—we have lined and unlined—and keep forever and use as jewelry bags.”

Her eyes flicked to me. “Brilliant.”

“I have my moments,” I told her.

“We have small sandalwood satchels with the Asil logo on it that we sell too.”

“To go with the idea of jewelry bag, scent a drawer or a box.” She nodded. “Of course.”

He shrugged in agreement that it was a no-brainer.

“I love everything about this.”

His hand went to my thigh and squeezed. He was nervous, and I had no idea why.

“Look at this,” his mother gasped.

All eyes were on her as she held up the hammered gold chain with green jade accents. It looked like it was five necklaces because the beads were different sizes and the chain itself was thick and thin in places. It looked rustic, and I knew it was one of his biggest sellers. He’d made many, but each one was breathtaking.

His mother was overwhelmed. “Oh, Landry, I adore it.”

“Ohmygod!” Jocelyn almost shrieked.

Hers was blue quartz and Tahitian freshwater pearl, and because it was a long piece, it could be worn either draped to her stomach or double-wrapped around her neck. Again, it was one of his best. It had been thoughtful, and his mother and sister were gushing. I was reminded of Christmas every year.

Family, friends, all the women who knew Landry waited in breathless anticipation for his gifts. My sister would scream and squeal and take pictures of herself and post them on Facebook and link them to his website the day after her birthday or Christmas. She loved his jewelry—everyone we knew did—and once I started sporting the wrap bracelets, my male cousins and even some of my uncles started wearing them. The difference was that Landry never handed out pre-made things to my family or to me. Every piece he made was lovingly crafted with us in mind. All my mother’s jewelry had some shade of purple in it because he knew it was her favorite. Everything I owned had a ruby on it somewhere because, supposedly, a ruby symbolized love. I had teased him once because my green jade leather wrap bracelet had no ruby on it and he had shown me the small, inconspicuous stone under the clasp.

“What are you thinking about?”

I came out of my thoughts to find him looking at me, his eyes worried for whatever reason. “You. I was thinking about you and how nuts the women in my family go every Christmas.”

He cackled evilly, waggling his eyebrows at me. “They do, don’t they?”

“Yeah.” I leaned sideways and kissed him because he was too cute, and the worry that had been behind his eyes poofed away, and he was oozing happy all of a sudden.

“So Landry, where did you go to school?” his father asked him.

“University of Michigan,” he explained. “I have a marketing degree, obviously.”

There were lots of questions after that, and I sat and listened, watching everyone, seeing Chris’s eyes flick over to me worriedly. He was concerned, I was sure, about what he’d said to me on the plane.

Jocelyn was really interested in Landry’s answers and pressed him for more and more. I could tell that she had really missed him. Her husband Hugh was very interested as well. I noticed Landry’s father watching him, studying him, and I wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for.

Landry’s mother explained about the leukemia and the hard road it had been and how the remission was a blessing.

“The party tonight,” she said, smiling at all of us, “is to welcome you home, Landry, and to celebrate my new lease on life.”

Everyone clapped, and he leaned against me.

“We have the rooftop of one of the best hotels rented out for the party,” his father explained. “And tomorrow we’ll have brunch here for us and a couple of close friends.”

I heard Landry catch his breath.

“Once you’re settled into the guest house, you’ll have to come back up and sit with us. We have over eight years to catch up on.”

Landry made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and I understood that he needed to be alone with me to decompress, to breathe, maybe even to scream. “Okay,” he told them, and then he turned his head and caught me in his blue-green gaze, willing me to fix it, to make it stop.