Page 93 of Belonging to Them
“Ready?”Tommy asks, wiping his eyes and gesturing to the bank’s doors.
There’s no putting it off any longer.“Yeah, let’s do this.”
We go inside, follow all the steps necessary to reach the safe deposit box.When they ask for the password, Tommy looks at me.
“Diminuendo,” I say, and the woman nods.
She leaves us alone in a small room with a table and a bag so we can remove anything we want from the box.
Tommy unlocks it and eases off the lid.
Inside, we find Dad’s old passport.His wedding ring, which makes me sad because of the way our mother abandoned our family.I don’t think Dad ever completely got over that.I shuffle things around and find something sparkly—a woman’s ring.
“What’s this?”I ask.
“Granny’s wedding ring,” Tommy says.“I used to play with it, spinning it around on her knobby finger.”
I barely remember our dad’s mother, because she died when I was five.Tommy was eight at the time.
There are a couple of other pieces of jewelry in the box—a diamond tennis bracelet, and a pair of earrings with blue stones that might be sapphires.
“Those were also Granny’s,” Tommy explains.“I wonder if Dad was saving them to give you someday.”
“If he was, it seems weird he’d just leave them here.”
Tommy shrugs.“He was probably worried we’d sell them.”
“I totally would’ve sold some of this to pay off the debts,” I admit.
Tommy’s expression is grim.“You know I would’ve lost it all in Ruberetta’s games.”
“What do we do with it now?”I ask.“We’re no longer desperate for money.It’s…sentimental, right?Just like you guessed.”
“You can have everything in here,” he says.“I just want one thing.”
I look into his beautiful blue eyes, which are just like our dad’s.“You want Granny’s ring.”
He nods.“I want to propose to Gianna.I love her, Ella.I love her and Owen so goddamn much.”
I hand him the ring with a happy heart.“She’s going to say yes.I’m so thrilled for you, Tommy.”
* * *
Kingston
I’m sitting in my home office, reading through some non-urgent emails from Kristin and Grant, when an excited squeal reaches my ears.
Shit, she got home before I expected her to.
“Bash!”I call as I rush into the living room.
Ella’s standing next to the baby grand that Bash and I had delivered this morning.The piano delivery people just left, in fact, after bringing up the instrument in pieces, re-assembling it, and tuning it.
Tears stream down Ella’s cheeks, and she’s absolutelyradiant.
“There’s a fuckingpianoin here,” she says, pointing.
Bash rushes in from the studio, where he’d been tinkering.“We thought you’d take longer on your errand,” he says.
