A minute later: “Okay, I found it. Name’s Claire Henderson. Address is…” He rattled off a street address on the north side of town.
I scribbled it down on the back of an envelope. “Thank you. Seriously, thank you.”
“I’m not supposed to do this,” Ron said. “But if my ring was in there, I’d want someone to find me. You’re doing a good thing, man.”
“I hope so,” I said.
Ezoic
After I hung up, I sat there staring at the address I’d written down. It was across town, at least a thirty-minute drive. I’d have to find someone to watch the kids. I’d have to use gas money I didn’t really have to spare.
And for what? To return a ring to someone who probably didn’t even know it was missing. Who might have forgotten about it entirely.
But I kept thinking about that engraving. Always.
Ezoic
Someone had meant that. Had believed it.
I owed it to them—to whoever Leo and Claire had been—to make sure that promise made it back where it belonged.
Source: Unsplash
The Woman Who’d Been Looking for Forever
Ezoic
The next afternoon, I bribed our teenage neighbor Jessica with a box of pizza rolls and twenty bucks to watch the kids for an hour. She showed up with her phone and her AirPods and a bored expression that suggested this was beneath her, but she was saving for a car and would tolerate small children for minimum wage.
“They’ve already eaten,” I told her. “Milo needs to use the bathroom every thirty minutes or he’ll have an accident but is too stubborn to go on his own. Hazel will try to convince you that I let her have candy before dinner. I don’t. Nora’s the responsible one but she’ll try to parent the other two, so just redirect her to a book.”
