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Show Motherlunge a novel 79 Dorothy shook her head. I put the jewelry box on the table in front of her. "Nothing in it," I said, opening the lid and presenting the inside to her, game-show style. "Sweetie." Dorothy reached up to take a mug of coffee from Pavia. Her hands trembled as she tore open a bag of Sweet and Low and stirred it in with her spoon. "Honey. There was nothing in there to begin with." "What are you talking about? You had.. .things. You had a pearl necklace, your wedding ring, that cameo ring-you know, that lady's face...?" I turned my head and pointed at my profile, pushed up my glasses. "The white lady on a red background. The ring. The one you said you'd give to me." "And Grandma Alva's rings," Pavia said, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms above her belly. "Remember those?" Dorothy was stirring her coffee around and around. For a full minute and with an almost ecstatic sense of restraint I waited for her to say anything. Her spoon ground around the bottom of the mug with the sound of failing manual transmission. "So what about it, Mom," I said, finally reaching over and grabbing the spoon out 8 her hand. "What about all of your jewelry?" She raised the mug and spoke above the rim. "All those things have been gone for a while now," she said. "We pawned them to buy gas to come out here. And most of everything else-like the duffle bag and boombox?-that was his." I looked at Pavia, who had begun to rub her eyes with her fingers. "So, okay," she said in a muffled voice from behind her hands. "You get social security, right? Money from Dad? And I sent money, right?" |