sat down beside her and smiled. “Well, this old ticker’s still beating, so I guess so.”
Eva reached her hand out to Warren’s arm. “I can hardly believe you’re here,” she said. “Your mother missed you so.”
“I can only imagine,” he said.
“Do you remember, Daniel?”
“I think so. I have moments when I believe I can remember that life. When I close my eyes, I can see her face.”
Eva smiled. “Vera’s face?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
I knelt down beside Warren’s chair. “I found her grave site,” I said.
Warren looked deeply moved. “How?”
“Eva told me.”
“My God,” he said. “I’ve been looking for her for so long, I…”
“Would you like me to take you there today, after we visit the old apartment building?”
“Yes,” Warren said, shifting in his chair. As he lifted his leg, he knocked a magazine from the coffee table. I reached to pick it up and my bracelet slid down to the base of my wrist. The sapphires sparkled in the afternoon sun streaming through the windows.
Eva sat up in her chair. “Claire, that bracelet,” she said. “It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I noticed it on your wrist the other day. May I ask where you got it?”
I turned to Ethan, who waited quietly near the door, leaning against the doorframe. “My husband gave it to me,” I said proudly. “It was a gift.”
“Let me see it,” she said, extending her hand.
I held my wrist out to her and she studied the gold chain for a long time. “Yes,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Vera’s bracelet. The one Charles gave to her as a gift when he was courting her.”
“It can’t be,” I said.
“She’s right,” Warren said with certainty. “Father gave it to me when I was a young man. He said to give it to a very special woman because it had belonged to someone he once loved. I gave it to my wife, and when she died, I passed it on to Ethan to give to you.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “All this time, I’ve been wearing her bracelet.”
Ethan knelt beside me and I squeezed his hand. “I remember now,” I said, recalling my research. “The autopsy report. Charles Kensington”—I turned to Warren—“your father picked up her personal effects. This must have been after Josephine told him the truth about you, after he found out that Vera had died searching for her son.”
I clutched the bracelet with new appreciation. It had clung to Vera’s wrist the night she took her last breath and had found its way to my arm some eighty years later.
“My late wife always loved that bracelet,” Warren said. “If only she could have known the real story. We’ll meet again,” he said, looking up toward the sky with a wink. “And I’ll have quite a story to tell her.”
“Will you ever,” Eva said.
I stood up. “I’m sure you two could reminisce forever, but Warren has one more stop to make—that is, if you’re ready.”
“Yes,” he said, standing. “I am.”
Eva followed us to the door. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you,” she said to Warren. “I feel like Mother’s soul can rest now.”
“Aunt Caroline?” he said, as if extracting a memory long buried in his mind.
“Yes. My mother. It was her dying wish to find you.”
“I hope she’s smiling down now,” he said.
“I know she is,” Eva replied. “With Vera.”
My heart pounded as Ethan drove toward Café Lavanto. He pulled the car into a load-and-unload zone at the foot of the hill leading up to the café. “Doesn’t look like there’s any parking on the street,” he said, squinting ahead. “I’ll just drop you off here.”
I unfastened my seat belt in the backseat and inched closer to Warren in the passenger seat. “It may be the last chance to see the old building,” I said. “They’re going to tear it down.”
“What a shame,” he said, trying to get a look at the scene ahead. “Why?”
“Condo buildings,” I said.
“Doesn’t this city have enough of those?”
I shrugged. “Seattle seems to have an insatiable appetite for condos and Starbucks.” I looked out at the café. “It’s a shame, really. The owner is a good man. He’s selling it to support his mother. She’s been ill for a long time and she can’t pay her medical bills.”
I wasn’t sure if Warren was listening. His gaze remained fixed on the street.
“Are you coming in?” I asked Ethan, before stepping out onto the sidewalk. The afternoon sun beamed in through the windshield and made his