Page 64 of No Rings Attached
“Oh, no,” I muttered.
“One time I got this massive statement necklace clasped but couldn’t get it off.”
“Oh, I remember this,” Wyatt interjected, laughing.
“He had to wear it to his eighth-grade baseball game,” Grace continued mercilessly. “This giant, gaudy thing with purple crystals kept bouncing against his chest every time he ran. His teammates never let him live it down.”
“Why didn’t you tell her no?” Ellie asked, her eyes dancing with amusement.
I looked at Grace—her grin and mischief in her eyes—and shrugged. “I couldn’t disappoint her.”
“That’s actually really sweet,” Ellie said softly, and her foot tapped mine under the table.
“I’ve got a story.” Marc winked at me, which I guessed was code for ‘not as an embarrassing story.’ Although his view of that and mine differed greatly. “When I was ten, I found a scraggly stray cat behind the school. Drew helped me smuggle it home in my backpack.”
“Oh this should be good,” Ellie leaned, a sweet smile teasing her lips.
I shook my head. “That was the day we learned cats donotlike baths.”
Wyatt winced, likely remembering that day too. “We kept it hidden in the garage for three days, taking turns sneaking it food. Dad found us because Drew had created an entire care schedule—feeding times, litter box cleaning, all of it—and left it next to the printer.”
Dad chuckled. “The organizational skills gave him away. What twelve-year-old makes a laminated feeding schedule?”
“Laminated?” Ellie repeated, turning to me with barely-contained delight.
“I wanted to make sure the cat was properly cared for,” I protested. “If we were going to do it, we should do it right.”
“Even when you were breaking the rules, you were making spreadsheets,” she said, giggling. “That’s very on-brand for you. Did you keep the cat?”
I didn’t love that I had to suffer through an embarrassing memory lane trip, but I’d do it again just to see the joy lighting up Ellie’s face right now.
“Snuggles lived to be eighteen,” Marc said. “Drew made him a collar with a tiny nameplate from scrap metal in the workshop.”
“Of course he did,” Ellie said, her voice warm and affectionate.
“Now Ellie, our Drew, is multi-talented. When he was six, he’d sit at my home worktable for hours while I designed for the fun of it,” Mom said, and I felt my neck heat up knowing where this was going.
She had this look on her face—the one she got when she was about to embarrass me with a story she found adorable. “He had this little set of pliers and wire I’d given him, and he’d make the most elaborate creations.”
“They were terrible,” I muttered, but couldn’t suppress a smile at those twisted wire monstrosities.
“They were ambitious,” Mom corrected, like she always did. “One day he made this ring—if you could call it that. More like a tangled bird’s nest of copper wire with a button hot-glued on top.”
I dropped my head into my hands.
“He presented it to me so seriously,” Mom continued her voice growing soft, “and said, ‘Mom this is for you. It’s called, ‘For The Best Mom Ever.’”
I glanced up to find Ellie’s hand pressed to her chest, her expression melting.
“I wore it for a week straight,” Mom said. “It turned my finger green and caught on everything, but he was so proud.”
“I still can’t believe you wore it.” Mom had been the catalyst to a hobby I’d since pushed aside after deciding to pursue business in college instead.
“Every single day. You made it for me, so of course I did.” Mom’s smile was gentle. “Then one morning at breakfast, you asked if I’d teach you to do it the ‘real way.’ So we started designing together. Every Saturday morning, just the two of us.”
The memories flooded back—those Saturday mornings at her worktable, the scents of her coffee and my coffee milk, the quiet focus of creating something with our hands. Even though Mom stopped working at Kingsley Jewelry soon after I was born, she kept her joy of making jewelry alive by tinkering at home and then passed that joy onto me.
“That’s when I fell in love with it,” I admitted, my voice coming out quieter than I’d intended. “Watching Mom take an idea and turn it into something tangible. Something that could mean a great deal to someone else.”
