Page 35 of The Girl with a Secret
Rosa understood the gist of what he was saying, and it filled her with despair. Why on earth hadn’t she asked her mother for the receipt? Such a thought had not even occurred to her.
“I don’t have it…” she admitted, and she heard the catch of tears in her throat.
The man nodded, his expression kind but also firm. “As I said, we keep items for six months. You may bring the receipt back at any point in that time in order to redeem the item.”
“Bitte… please… could you tell me how much it costs?”
The man hesitated, and then, seeming to take pity on her, he reached for a ledger kept under the counter and flipped it open, running his finger down the page. “The gemstone in question was just over a carat, and was of particular good quality and clarity, although the way it had been cut, unfortunately, diminished its value somewhat. Your mother received thirty pounds for it.”
“Thirty pounds!” It was an unfathomable amount of money to her; she only made a little over a pound a week. She would never be able to buy it back, even if she saved every penny she earned for the next six months, which she couldn’t possibly do, anyway.
For a second, tears misted her vision and she tried to wipe her eyes as discreetly as she could. The man, in a gesture of gentlemanly kindness, produced a crisp, folded handkerchief from his breast pocket. Rosa took it with murmured thanks.
“I’m sorry,” she told him after she’d wiped her eyes. “I cannot…” She struggled to find the word before finally settling on, “pay.”
“Perhaps in time…” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, not wanting to admit just how impossible it all was. Her sliver of emerald, the one thing that had connected her to friends and even herself, was gone. Forever. She felt as if she’d betrayed her friends, committed an act of treachery against them. Worse, it felt like an omen; if she could not keep her word, would she be able to meet them at Henri’s? “Danke,” she whispered, handing the handkerchief back. “Thank you.”
Blindly, her vision still clouded by tears, she started toward the door. The incandescent anger she’d felt for her mother was gone now, replaced by only a deep, wearying despair. It was only a jewel, she told herself, trying to rally and utterly unable to. Only a tiny sliver of a jewel…
But it had been so much more than that. It hadmeantso much more to her. And she absolutely hated the thought that she’d lost something she’d promised to keep, only a few months into her journey. She’d broken a promise—the most precious one she’d ever made.
Rosa fumbled for the door handle, pulling it open, only to stop suddenly when someone stepped inside, toward her.
“Rosa.”
Her father put his hands on her shoulder, heavy and sure, as he steered her back into the shop.
Rosa blinked and wiped her eyes. “Vati…” The childhood name slipped unthinkingly from her lips. “What are you doing here?”
“Your mother told me what happened.”
“My emerald—” Her voice choked.
“Yes.”
Rosa blinked up at him, the first tendrils of hope winding around her heart. “Why…” she asked hesitantly, wiping her eyes again. “Why are you here?”
“Wait outside the shop,” he told her. “And leave it to me.”
Dazed, hardly daring to hope, Rosa stepped outside the shop. It was getting late now, shops starting to close, many of them already shuttered, people hurrying by, heads tucked low as the balmy warmth of the summer’s day seeped away. Rosa wrapped her arm around her middle as she tried to compose herself. Her emotions felt like fragile, breakable things, and far too close to the surface. She feared if her father left the shop without her emerald, she would burst into tears, or worse. If he leftwiththe emerald, her reaction might be the same.
A few endless minutes passed before he emerged from the shop, closing the door carefully behind him. Silently he held out his palm; the sliver of emerald was glinting in the middle of it.
Rosa let out a tearful gasp of relief. “How did you…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Had her mother had to part with her own jewels? Rosa could not imagine she would have done so with any willingness. She took the jewel and slipped it carefully into her pocket, swallowing against the threat of tears in her throat.
“Thank you,Vati,” she whispered, and he nodded brusquely. As he straightened his sleeve, she noticed, with a lurch of poignant understanding, that he was not wearing his Blancpain watch that he’d bought from the luxury workshop in Villeret, France, many years ago. It was one of his most prized possessions. “Father,” she said shakily. “Your watch…”
“Why do I need to tell the time,” he teased wryly, “when I have nowhere to go?”
“Oh, Father.Vati.” Unthinkingly, Rosa rushed into his arms, and her father pulled her into a tight embrace. She pressed her cheek against the scratchy wool of his jacket as she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,Hase.”
