treatments, medication, it was all so expensive.
They’d agreed together to sell the pieces they couldn’t bear
to part with when it was clear it was time. Her mother’s
necklace went last.
It was a special piece, remade and redesigned every year on
their anniversary. Her dad gave it to her mom at their wedding
and every year after that, he took it back and crafted it into
something new. After twenty-five years of marriage, the
necklace had become something elaborate, cherished, and
worth a lot of money.
It had been advertised with an auction house, and Coralyn
knew the name of the woman who bought it, because that was
stipulated at the sale, that it would be public. Her dad had
insisted, as if one day, she might be able to find whoever
bought it and buy it back. She knew it would never happen,
but because of that stipulation, Coralyn knew the name: Giana
Thompson.
Coralyn had done a few online searches after the sale. Giana
was some crazy rich lady who owned a real estate
development company in the city. She was powerful, richer
than God. She collected things. Artwork. Sculptures. Rare and
interesting pieces from around the world. Jewellery.
It was the sale of that necklace that was paying for her
father to be in this room right now. She would so rather have
had him at home, but a private nurse was even more
expensive, and he’d insisted that the hospital was fine. They
both knew the apartment wasn’t home. Their house, the place
where they’d been a family before Coralyn’s mom died in a
car accident, was long gone.
The rattle of her dad’s breathing brought her back to the
