Then he reached inside his jacket.
For one ridiculous second, I thought he was pulling out speech notes.
Instead, Noah removed a small velvet pouch.
He walked toward me.
Then placed something cold in my open palm.
Gold.
A small diamond.
I stopped breathing.
It was Mara’s wedding ring.
The ring I had searched for after she died.
The ring everyone believed had disappeared forever.
I looked at Noah.
“How?”
My fingers closed around it.
“How did you get this?”
Noah took a slow breath.
“Because I thought if they took this too…”
His voice softened.
“Mom would really be gone.”
WHAT EIGHT-YEAR-OLD NOAH HEARD
Noah stared at the ring.
“The day Mom and Dad died, everybody was running around their house.”
He sounded eighteen.
But somehow, I could also hear the eight-year-old boy underneath every word.
“I went into their bedroom.”
“Why?”
