The Charm Bracelet (3 page)

Which meant playing Santa instead of splurging on Givenchy.

Her sudden melancholy mood didn’t escape Carole.

‘Is everything OK, honey? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go on about the dress.’

Holly shrugged and waved her hand airily. ‘Oh no, it’s nothing. Sorry, just have some stuff on my mind. Danny started talking about dads again this morning. Apparently, he has taken note that some of his friends’ fathers pick up their kids at school.’

‘I’m sure he just thinks that you could use someone else around,’ Carole offered. Holly looked up to protest, but Carole cut her off. ‘I know, I know. You are superwoman and you can do it all. But I’m sure that Danny’s just thinking about your happiness, not his.’

‘But I am happy,’ Holly insisted.

‘I know you are,’ Carole continued. ‘That’s plain to see. You are one of the most optimistic people I know. You see romance and joy around every corner and infect everyone you meet with all that positivity. Do you think Danny doesn’t see that? All I am saying is that you, too, deserve a little magic. You’re too young to take yourself out of the game completely. You don’t want to end up like me, all by myself,’ Carole said with a self-deprecating smile.
             

‘Oh Carole. I’m sure I could do much worse than end up like you,’ Holly teased, referring to her boss’s whirlwind social life.

‘Well then, you need to get your diary filled. No way are you going to add more charms to that bracelet if all you do is sit at home in your pyjamas.’ Carole patted Holly’s arm knowingly, aware that she had a tradition of adding charms that signified important life events and experiences to her charm bracelet. She also knew that Holly hadn’t added a charm in several years.

‘Thank you, you’re right. I’ll make a start on filling up my social calendar.’

‘Good.’

‘Just as soon as I unpack all those boxes out back,’ she added with a wink, skilfully evading the topic.

Carole shook her head as Holly headed towards the back of the store. ‘Well, it’s your life, but do you think Anna Bowery waited for Sinatra to ask her to dance? Absolutely not, I bet she took the bull by the horns. Especially in that dress!’               Holly pushed open the stockroom door with her hip. ‘I believe it,’ she called back. ‘In that dress, a girl could do anything.’ She quickly brushed through the doorframe, hoping to avoid any further discussion on her social life, the dress, or her lack of either. That simply was not a reality. She knew where her responsibilities lay: firmly with Danny and what was best for him.

She shook her head as if to rid herself of the cobwebs of gloom that had now descended upon her. Determined to recapture the optimism with which she had begun the day, she picked up a box cutter that lay on a folding table and turned to the boxes that Harold had delivered. Who knew what treasures were waiting to be discovered within?

She applied the box cutter to the top of the first one, slicing it open quickly and expertly, realising that it was a true garment box. Some of their stock came in anything: garbage bags, cardboard boxes, milk crates even. This box was beautifully packed, as if the owner understood well the worth of the clothes. There were a few gorgeous leather handbags on top and then some suits, all carefully wrapped in tissue paper. Three suits, to be exact. Holly pulled them out and lined them up on a rack in front of her. Three perfectly kept Gucci suits: one pink, one brown plaid and one in black. She gave a low whistle.

‘Wow, this is good stuff,’ she whispered under her breath. Why would anyone want to part with it? Then she smiled as she answered her own question. Someone with lots of money, of course. It was typical for the time of year, actually, especially amongst
New York’s wealthy, who routinely purged their closets, readying themselves for the onslaught of holiday shopping. Nice …

She went about the business of inspecting them for tears and blemishes and going through the pockets. People rarely used the pockets in designer pieces and most times they were sewn up to keep the lines of the suit smooth.

Then, going back to the box, she pulled the flaps wider to reveal a red velvet jacket … a very expensive, classic red velvet jacket. Chanel, no less.

‘Oh my, this is beautiful … just beautiful,’ Holly gasped, pulling the jacket from its packaging and shaking it out gently. She smiled as she examined the workmanship; the quality the Chanel brand put into their individual pieces was truly exquisite.

As she admired it, she couldn’t resist wondering what it would look like on. ‘Oh what the hell.’ Holly peeled off her own jacket and placed it aside. Unlike the dress, she just might be able to afford this – plus it was practical and she could wear it anywhere, no special occasion required. Slipping into the jacket, and buttoning it up, she ran her hands over the delicate fabric, checking the way it fitted.

But as Holly turned to a mirror to admire the effect while smoothing the jacket along her torso, she felt something. Something hard inside the jacket, beneath the material.

‘What in the world … ?’ Holly unbuttoned the jacket and pulled open the lapels, wondering if something from the box had got snagged on it. But there was nothing immediately apparent against the interior lining.

Her hand returned to the spot where she had first felt the hard bulge. It was still there.

She turned the Chanel jacket inside out and was examining the lining when Carole came into the stockroom. ‘Holly, have you seen that beaded purse we had on display last week? Has it sold? Someone is asking about it … oh wow, that’s beautiful.’

Holly shook her head. ‘There’s something wrong with it, though. I tried it on and there’s something … hard inside.’

Carole stepped closer. ‘Something hard?’

‘Yes … right here … oh, there’s a pocket!’ Holly ran her hands along the seam and pointed out a small, barely concealed zipper that was secreted away in the lining.

‘Let me see,’ Carole peered over her shoulder. ‘Well, Chanel certainly never put inner pockets in these. This must have been altered by the original owner – or for her, at least.’

Holly gently tugged at the zipper and it opened easily. ‘There’s definitely something in here.’ She put her hand in the secret pocket, and her fingers sought out an object cool to the touch.

Taking it out, she revealed a silver chain. Actually no, she realised quickly, it was a silver
bracelet

full of dangling trinkets and pretty objects.

The room seemed eerily quiet as Holly held the bracelet in her open palm and the morning light, leaking through the windows, illuminated the dust particles around the charms, giving them a slight luminescence.

‘Oh my goodness,’ she exclaimed to Carole, ‘a charm bracelet.’

‘It’s just like yours.’

Holly inspected the piece of jewellery, running her gaze over the individual charms. She noted a horseshoe, a baby carriage, a heart-shaped key, a building of some kind, a carousel … there were so many. Yes, it was indeed just like her own bracelet, but with many more charms.

‘So many of them,’ she whispered almost to herself. Then she looked at Carole. ‘Obviously it was left in the jacket by accident. Someone is missing it.’

Carole turned back to the boxes. ‘Well, I’m sure we can send it back. Where’s the docket?’ She duly picked up the UPS delivery documentation and read through it. ‘No name or address that I can see, just the UPS branch it was shipped from. I’m sure they’ll have some record of it.’ She frowned. ‘And according to this it’s a straight donation – no commission required.’

Which meant that the sender of these clothes intended that their percentage of the proceeds earned on any sales should go directly to charity. While this wasn’t unusual in the business, it was becoming rarer and rarer due to the downturn in the economy.

Holly nodded absently, her eyes not leaving the bracelet. ‘But why on earth would you put a bracelet in that little pocket in the first place? You’d think the owner would have missed it and remembered that they’d put it there. I know I rarely leave the house without mine.’

As she took in the variety of charms, she knew that this bracelet had to be of great value and importance – to the owner, or indeed to anyone who had chosen the charms and perhaps given them as a gift, helping the owner build up so many significant memories. It was so full that Holly could tell that whoever owned this bracelet had really
lived
. Her spine tingled with anticipation as she started imagining the stories that accompanied each trinket.

She instinctively glanced at her own bracelet, sitting prettily on her wrist, and ran her fingers over the individual charms. It was her talisman and each charm was a special reminder of the most important times in her life. She’d had it for what … goodness, it was going on eighteen years now. Where did the time go?

Holly gazed down at the charms. There might be many now, yet once upon a time there had been only one …

Queens, NY, 1994

Holly looked down at the frumpy black dress her mom had bought her for the funeral.

She felt tears well up and she pulled the skirt of the dress to her face, hastily wiping it. She was broken-hearted, miserable, and she didn’t care if her appearance justified it. Besides, the service was over, they’d returned from the cemetery ages ago and no one had to see her. She just had to try and get through the endless stream of people that flowed in and out of her house, commiserating with her and her mother over her father.

Dad … She would never see her beloved dad’s face again. It was like a nightmare, a terrible dream Holly wished she could wake up from. She curled up in the foetal position on her bed, and lay there for a very long time, feeling terribly alone. Why did it have to be him who’d died? Why couldn’t it have been - ? The thought came unbidden, and Holly immediately felt guilty. They might be fighting a lot lately, but of course she wouldn’t wish her mother, Eileen, dead. She just wished this horrible day, this horrible
time
, could be over.

Wiping her tearstained face on the pillow, she focused her gaze on the window in front of her. Sunlight streamed into her bedroom, and she watched beams of light dance across the ceiling above her bed. She felt angry that the sun chose to show its face on such a day. It should be overcast, rainy, gloomy. It would be more appropriate if the weather matched her mood, appreciated what was happening in her life.

Holly sat up at last and swung her feet over the side of her bed, finding her footing and walking to the window. She cast her eyes across the rear lawn of her family’s home. The tiny patch of grass was packed with mourners, and in the midst of all of it, she spotted her mother. Her heart softened a little as she saw the misery that was etched in every line of her mother’s face. There was no denying that this was hard on Eileen too. Even when they had realised it might be a possibility for some time. With the cancer and all.

She knew that she should probably go down there and support her mom. If anything, she should go and give a hand to Sarah,
a neighbour who had volunteered to help out in the kitchen today, and organize the crazy amount of food that people had brought. Casseroles and vegetable plates and baked goods … Holly had never understood why people thought that funerals or memorials were a time to eat; she had never been less hungry in her whole life.

She was about to step away from the window and retreat back to her bed when her mother looked up towards her bedroom. Their eyes locked and a weak smile touched the corners of Eileen’s lips and she raised her hand slightly, as if encouraging Holly to come down and join the living. Holly didn’t understand how that one simple gesture allowed for so much pressure to build in her chest. She felt as if a vice grip had tightened around her heart. She knew she would have to face all those people, but she really didn’t want to. This sadness, this funeral, was bad enough, not to mention having to wonder about the private thoughts of the people around her.

Eventually, Holly left her room and walked down the hallway that led to the stairs descending into the entry hall of their tiny house. She was well aware that her footsteps echoed on the bare wooden floors, and that it would be easy for anyone to tell that she was up and about. There would probably be people down there waiting for her, all wanting to talk and hug her and tell her how much Seamus had loved her.

Seamus her dad. A man too young, too lively, and too full of energy and ability to be lying in a coffin under six feet of earth. But it was true. She reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose as if this effort would push the tears to the back of her eyes, but it didn’t. Two large drops of water spilled forth. She wiped them on her sleeve just as Sarah walked into the room.

‘Oh Holly, I thought I heard you coming down.’

Sarah spotted the teardrops on Holly’s face and her heart melted at the sight of such suffering.

‘Oh honey, come here, come here,’ she cooed as she encircled Holly in her arms. ‘There, there, don’t cry. I know it hurts, I know it hurts terribly. We are all going to miss him.’

Holly nodded sorrowfully as she rested her head on Sarah’s shoulder. ‘Come on now. Let’s go and get something to eat. You must be hungry.’
              Food. Sarah’s answer to everything. Holly smiled in spite of herself and shook her head. ‘I’m not really hungry.’

‘Of course you are,’ Sarah insisted. ‘I haven’t seen you eat all day. Oh, and I almost forgot, there is a package for you on the counter.’

Holly looked up. ‘A package?’

She had been getting the mail ahead of her mother, so as to weed through the condolence cards. It was fascinating to Holly the types of cards that came in.
Wishing You Well, Sending Prayers …
they were so stupid, and she could see why they upset her mother, but they just made Holly angry. She wanted to get a card that told the truth:
Life Sucks, It's Not Fair, or I Have No Idea What You Are Going Through But I Am Glad I'm Not You.

Sarah shrugged and led the way through the hallway to the kitchen that ran parallel to the backyard. ‘Yes. It was delivered just a little while ago.’

‘Are you sure it’s not for my mom? Everything else has been for her.’

‘No, it’s definitely for you. Has your name on it. It doesn’t say Eileen O’Neill. It says Holly O’Neill.’

Holly followed her into the kitchen and sat down at the polished Formica table in the breakfast nook. ‘Right there.’ Sarah pointed to a small package next to a bowl of fruit. ‘Came about an hour ago.’

Holly reached forward and took the small package in her hands, turning it over and over.

‘Well? Aren’t you going to open it?’

Holly shrugged a non-verbal answer like any sullen teenager, even though on the inside she was brewing with curiosity, as well as some relief at being offered a temporary distraction from her otherwise terrible day.

What could it be? Who was it from?
she wondered, hoping that her anticipation wouldn’t show on her face. It felt wrong somehow.

As the plain brown packaging paper was peeled away, a beautiful velvet lilac coloured box adorned with
a white satin ribbon revealed itself.

‘Oh, looks nice. What is it?’ asked Sarah, moving closer to the table with a plate of sandwiches she had prepared for Holly. She placed the plate on the table and pushed it towards her, but Holly ignored it.

With trembling fingers, she untied the ribbon and lifted off the top of the box, wondering what it contained. And what’s more, who was it from?

Then she sucked in her breath and gasped. ‘Oh my goodness. How pretty.’

Inside the box was a silver bracelet made of delicate loops that sparkled beneath the kitchen lights. Holly lifted up the chain and examined it more closely. A single item dangled from the centre of the bracelet. A charm. It was a charm bracelet.

‘Well, isn’t that lovely?’ Sarah said moving closer. ‘What’s that?’ she asked, pointing to the charm.

‘It looks like … an hourglass,’ Holly replied finally. The tiny hourglass charm was made of silver and glass, with sand particles inside the glass.

She turned her attention from the bracelet back to the box that had been discarded on the table. Looking inside the lid, she felt around under the cushion that the bracelet had rested upon but found no note, no receipt or explanation. Just … nothing.

Right then her mother appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘I think we need more iced tea outside,’ she said. ‘Patsy Collins said that the jug is empty … what are you two doing?’ She turned her attention to Holly and Sarah, who were both still studying the bracelet. ‘What’s that?’

Holly looked up at her mother, her eyes wide with fascination.

‘It’s a bracelet. A charm bracelet. It’s just arrived out of nowhere addressed to me,’ she said, holding up the piece of jewellery for Eileen to see.

Forgetting about the iced tea, Eileen crossed the room to get a better look. ‘Isn’t that gorgeous! An hourglass … beautiful. Who is it from?’

Holly shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

Her mother
let out a chuckle. ‘Looks like someone has a secret admirer … ’

Colour flooded Holly’s cheeks as she considered the thought. Everyone knew that her father had passed away recently, and her classmates were well aware that she hadn’t been in school for the past week or so. However, when she thought about who might possibly have sent her the bracelet, it seemed unlikely that it could be anyone from there. Most of the boys she knew were as subtle as a battering ram, and what’s more she couldn’t imagine any of them picking out such a pretty piece of jewellery, let alone taking the time to select a charm like an hourglass.

Even Corey Mason, who had been following her around lately (and who
definitely
liked her) was the type of guy who was more interested in showing off his biceps than taking the time to figure out a thoughtful gift.

Holly shrugged, awkward
about the idea of discussing boys on the day of her father’s funeral. ‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said defensively, while inside her head her thoughts were racing.

‘You know, the hourglass … that’s a symbol of passing time,’ said
Sarah after a beat. Her voice was gentle. ‘Maybe … maybe somebody wanted to help you realise that today is also about celebrating your father’s life, about realising that things are always moving forward, and life is for living.’

‘Sarah’s right,’ Eileen agreed, her
voice cracking a little. ‘Your dad would have wanted you to be happy, to be whole. He loved you so much and cherished every second he spent with you. You know that, don’t you?’

A lump in her throat, Holly stared at the hourglass,
beginning to understand the significance. Days of sadness and uncombed hair, of her and her mom bumping into each other in the night because neither of them could sleep. Of mumbling in the morning as they avoided Dad’s favourite chair in the kitchen, eating separately in their own rooms. She and her mother would pass each other in the living room, again avoiding his chair, but mostly avoiding each other.

. A surge of optimism pulsed through her veins. . Holly would miss
her dad desperately. Forever. And Seamus would have known this, known how lonely and adrift she’d feel without him.

Which was why
she knew in her heart that the bracelet must have been arranged by her father, arranged before … everything, so that it would arrive at a time just when she needed it.

She slipped the bracelet on; the weight felt good and solid, as if someone was firmly touching – holding even – her hand.

Thank you, Dad
, she told her father silently, knowing that she would treasure his final gift to her for the rest of her life.

Greg Matthews tapped his fingers on his desk, nervous about what was about to happen, what he was about to do. He had been in the office since seven thirty that morning, and had been working through this onslaught of frantic energy, debating with himself, making sure he wasn’t going to regret it. It was now ten, time to get this done.

It
was
the right decision, wasn’t it?

He looked around his tiny cubicle. Even after eight years at Foster, Cummings and Tyle
r
a top Wall Street brokerage firm in Lower Manhattan

he still had barely enough room to get comfortable. His desk chair needed replacing; this he knew because of the pain that had lodged itself in his lower lumbar region about two years ago, a pain that he paid a masseuse dearly to get rid of, but still felt it return after a few days of being back in the chair.

The office was a grim building on Vesey Street, with grim lighting and this grim cubicle. Greg had always hated it, but enjoyed the money. He liked his clients, but usually got sidetracked into talking to them about a gallery opening or how their kids were doing, rather than trying to sell them the next hot commodity.

He’d started out on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and had worked his way up to the office he was in now. There was no denying that it brought him little joy, just a big bank account.

‘It’s now or never Matthews,’ he said under his breath. ‘Time to make the call.’

He poked his head up over his cubicle walls hesitantly, like a prairie dog hoping to go unnoticed by its prey. Looking straight ahead, he scanned across the sea of cubes, ignoring the noisy activity of his co-workers, into his boss’s office. He could see the stately figure of Dave Foster at his polished mahogany desk, like a king on his throne.

Greg had known this day was coming for a long time. Recent events had brought it home that life was short and there was little time to waste. Now it was nearing Christmas. The end of one year, the beginning of another. He couldn’t face the thought of entering the New Year still sitting in this cube. He cringed at the idea of another ignored holiday season and regretted, for his family’s sake, that he hadn’t done it sooner.

That’s not to say that he didn’t have a good life. He had been happy, blissfully happy, when he wasn’t inside these walls. The problem was that the time he spent outside the walls was limited. And with everything that was going on in his personal life at the moment, that just couldn’t continue.