“Archie?”
Claire stood on the stairs.
She’d come home early.
Her eyes moved from my face to the open jars.
Then to the ring.
All the color drained from her face.
“What have you done?”
“Claire, they’re just pickles. You’re making this bigger than it needs to be.”
She hurried downstairs.
“Did you open all of them?”
“Just two.”
“Did you damage anything?”
“Would you please tell me what’s happening?”
She took the ring gently from my fingers.
For a moment, she just stared at it.
Then she whispered, “These women trusted me.”
“What women?”
She lowered herself onto the basement steps.
And finally, after 11 years, she began explaining.
Claire’s grandmother had lived in a little house with a yellow kitchen.
Every summer, women came over to help her make pickles.
Some were neighbors.
Others were strangers.
As a teenager, Claire never understood why certain women arrived crying.
Or why Grandma sometimes let them sleep in the spare bedroom.
