The sapphire was large enough to stop conversation. Ocean-deep, almost unnaturally alive under light, haloed by antique diamonds cut by men who had used candle flames instead of electricity. It had belonged to the women in her family for more than a century. Her father had once tapped its surface lightly with a fingernail and told her, half joking and half solemn, “You’ll know when to wear it, honey. Wear it when you’re done being small.”
Vivien lifted it carefully. It felt colder than the room.
Her father had died six years earlier. Some nights, in the stretch between midnight and morning, she still felt the unreality of that loss as sharply as she had in the first week. Henry Sinclair had looked like a man the world would overlook if it had to describe him in a crowd. Broad shoulders gone softer with age, permanently stained fingers, flannel shirts that smelled like motor oil, peppermint gum, and winter air. In Dayton, Ohio, people knew him as the mechanic who fixed transmissions fairly and never let a single mother leave his shop without insisting she take the discount.