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Her hair was stiff from her swim in the sea earlier and she intended to take a shower, but first she wanted to watch some episodes of The Summer Seekers.
She made a quick snack, found the key in her mother’s bedroom and unlocked the study.
Every available space in the room was taken. Bookshelves rose from floor to ceiling against two of the walls. The other walls were covered with maps. Two large windows let in the light and showed every speck of dust. And there was plenty of it. The desk in the corner was piled high with more maps, guidebooks and stacks of papers.
And there, in prime position, was her art award.
Her mother had moved it from Liza’s old bedroom into the study where she could see it.
Liza felt a pressure in her chest. She’d had no idea. She never came into this room.
She touched the award, remembering that day she’d seen her mother clapping loudly in the audience.
She’d wanted so badly for her mother to be more demonstrative, but sometimes it wasn’t about what you said, it was about what you did. She wouldn’t have kept the award if she wasn’t proud, would she?
Liza forced herself to focus on the shelves. She found the guidebooks, but there was no sign of the DVDs.
Searching randomly, she pulled open the large drawer in the desk and there were the DVDs.
“Aha!” She pulled them out and was about to close the drawer when something glinted. She reached into the drawer to investigate and found a ring. The stone was huge. It couldn’t be a real diamond. Could it?
She lifted it out carefully. It had to be fake.
Was it fake?
She turned it over in her hand.
Who had given it to her mother? This wasn’t her engagement ring. Her mother’s engagement ring was an emerald and it was always on her finger.
This ring had been tucked loose under a piece of string holding a bunch of papers.
She checked the drawer and discovered that what she’d thought were papers were letters. The postmark was California, and they’d been mailed at regular intervals dating back to the early sixties. Her mother would have been in her early twenties.
Why hadn’t she opened them? Was there a reason the letters and the ring were together, or was that coincidence?
Her phone rang and she almost dropped the letters.
She slid the ring onto her finger for the time being, returned the letters to the drawer and locked the study door. Only when she’d done that did she answer her phone.
It was Sean.
“I’ve been calling you all day. Where were you?”
“I’ve been out. I forgot my phone.”
“You never forget your phone.”
These days she was doing a lot of things she didn’t normally do.
“I was busy.” She sat down on the edge of her mother’s bed. The ring felt heavy on her finger. Did that mean it was real? If it was real, then it must be valuable. Surely not even her mother would leave a valuable ring loose in a drawer.
“Busy doing what?” Sean sounded tired. “Caitlin is going crazy because she washed her white shirt, which is apparently precious, and I’d left a red cleaning cloth in the machine.”
Liza watched a woodpecker land on the apple tree. “I did tell her to check the machine is empty before she put anything in it.”
“Well, apparently it’s my fault, because I should have noticed. Girls are exhausting. Alice’s hair straighteners broke, and I’m told this is a tragedy. I tried to point out that this does not come under the heading of a crisis, but before I had the door slammed in my face for that remark I was told that I couldn’t possibly understand. The bathroom smells so badly of hairspray and perfume I’m having breathing issues. When are you coming back? How much attention does Popeye need?”
“I’m not staying for Popeye, I’m staying for me. I need a break.” It was the closest she’d come to admitting that something was wrong.
