Page 299 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

“I don’t…” But then I realize I know the answer. “Cream.”

Father turns immediately and heads for a different section of the vault. “Hair black, brown?”

“Dark brown. Messy.”

Edward quirks an eyebrow in my direction, but doesn’t comment. It looks like he’s narrowing in on a certain area, but heavens knows how.

“And her eyes. Please elaborate.”

“Greenish…”

His hand pauses, and he glances at me over his shoulder. “Do try harder, Son.”

“Uh…there’s a yellow color in the middle.”

“Hazel or gold?”

“Gold…” I nod. “Yeah. Gold.”

His lips curl into a smile. “And how does she make you feel?”

I blink, and slide my hands under my armpits. “I’m sorry, what now?”

My father narrows his eyes at me. “She makes you feel uncertain?”

“What? No. You’re the one doing that.”

My father laughs, and turns back. It looks like he’s narrowed in on a few pieces with blue and yellow stones.

“When you were last with her, what feeling stayed with you the longest after she left?”

“Regret.” I don’t know where the word comes from. I don’t know how I let it get past my lips. But if my father heard it, he doesn’t seem to find it a strange thing for me to say.

“Yes…This is the one.”

He swings open a glass door and takes out a bracelet with a trio of blue stones dangling from it.

I take it gingerly, fumble, and then hold it out.

“Wow,” I murmur.

“Three ten millimeter round-cut blue sapphires on a platinum chain. And the diamonds are all one carat, of course.”

The diamonds he refers to so glibly are embedded along the platinum chain in clusters like a crystalized form of Baby’s Breath.

“Wow,” I say again, and mean it just as much as I did the first time around.

“I designed it for a client, but he never took it.”

My eyes dart up to my father’s face. He looks lost in the past. “What? Why? It’s fucking beautiful.”

“He commissioned a full set, but when it came time to pay, he could only afford the necklace.”

“Oh. Isn’t that like…breach of contract?”

Edward shakes his head, inhales, and lets out a soft sigh. “He was dying of cancer, Son. Didn’t feel right to hold him to it. And he did give me one of his wife’s painting in partial payment. The one over the safe.”

“Fuck, okay.” I close my hand over the bracelet, and then hurriedly open it again. “Can I have a box or something?”

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