Those were real diamonds. High quality. Professionally set.
Worth thousands of dollars. Maybe tens of thousands.
Bessie saw me looking. Our eyes met for a brief moment across the driveway.
She didn’t smile. She didn’t say “Happy Mother’s Day, Suzanne.” She didn’t acknowledge me as a fellow mother being honored today.
She simply lifted her right wrist and gave it a deliberate little shake, making the diamonds catch the sunlight and throw rainbow sparks across my lawn.
It felt less like a greeting and more like a medieval queen reminding a peasant of their proper place in the hierarchy.
I swallowed hard against the lump forming in my throat and kept walking toward the car, determined not to let confusion show on my face.
I reached for the back door handle, planning to squeeze into the back seat beside Bessie and make the best of this unexpected situation.
“You look beautiful, Mom,” Louis said, walking around the front of the vehicle toward me.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I managed, my hand touching the door handle. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
I tried to sound light and easy, tried to pretend I hadn’t spent forty minutes standing at my window wondering if he’d forgotten me entirely.
But Louis’s voice changed suddenly, taking on a sharp edge. “Wait, Mom. Hold on.”
I froze with my fingers wrapped around the handle.
“What’s wrong?”
He stepped between me and the car door, physically blocking my access.
He wasn’t opening the door to help me in. He was preventing me from getting in at all.
Louis reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his iPhone. “The lighting is absolutely perfect right now,” he said, sounding rushed and slightly manic. “The sun’s hitting the driveway at the ideal angle. We need to get a picture before we lose this light.”
He thrust the phone toward me.
“Can you take a quick photo of the three of us by the car? We want to post it before dinner.”
I stared at the phone in his outstretched hand like it was a foreign object I’d never encountered before.
“A picture?”
“Yeah, Mom,” Valerie chimed in, already moving into position and smoothing down her cream dress. She linked her arm through Louis’s with practiced ease.
Bessie waddled into the frame between them, making absolutely certain that her diamond-laden wrist was prominently displayed, resting it on Louis’s shoulder like she was claiming ownership.
Leave a Comment