When I was 10 years old my mother gave me a locket that had been passed down through the women of my family for generations. It signified a sort of passage, a mother's gift to her coming of age daughter. One side of the locket kept a photo of my parents, from the time when my Dad still lived with us, and the other was empty, so that one day I could fill it with a picture of me and my husband.
For a long time, I never took it off. I wore it on my Graduation day, throughout college and even on my wedding. I put a photo of me and Michael, one we'd taken on our first date. He looked so funny back then, with a halo of blond wind-blown hair around his head, that never seemed to stay at one place. His face was somewhat younger, the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the ones from laughing all the time, a bit lighter, but present even back then. He had scrubby beard and a smile that could melt a woman's heart, make her weak in the knees. I loved him in that picture. I loved him in that moment, even if I did not realise it back then.
I loved him. And he loved me.
This morning I woke up to find that the locket was missing from my bedside table. I'd put it there yesterday afternoon, while I engaged myself in some serious end of tenancy cleaning, that involved going through the whole stack of nonsense in the attic and sorting them out, so that the most useless ones could be thrown out. Michael wasn't very happy when I told him I think it's time for him to let go of his comic books collection, and of all the cute baby clothes left from him and his brothers. His mum, being the caring person that she is, has been hoarding them in our attic, so that when we have children we won't have to buy them new staff. Which is a kind gesture, but not one I would agree to follow. Michael thinks the same, but you know how boys are with their mums... They just can't say "No".
So it's up to me to step in and play the "bad cop". A role I've reconciled with, as long as Michael lets me play "good cop" for my mum. When she comes to visit, and lets us in on yet another one of her "prophetic" business plans, he's the one to say "Thank you for the notion... but, no, thank you!" Luckily for him, my mother loves him like the son she never had. Which, in a way, he really is.
Back on topic, I had a little freak out, when I started looking for the locket and couldn't find it. Michael joined the "searching party" and we all, but turned the bedroom upside down. I fear we may require the help of a professional after builders cleaning company to put the bedroom back in order. Still, at least we found Grandma Julie's long missing ring. How it got under the bed is a mystery we may never come to understand. Although, I'm fairly certain, Michael has a theory. He usually does. It still amazes me, from time to time... the way his brain works.
I was just about to start looking through the living room, when the doorbell rang and an insistent knock threatened to bring the house down. I braced myself against what was coming. Only one person would "whop" the door like that when knocking. With the grace of an elephant in a China shop. Or a bull heading after a toreador.
Miss Picksby.
Taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I moved to open the door, while Michael o-so-reasonably went to have a shower.
Coward.
So there I stood, while she "beat" and "beat" at the front door, trying to peak in through the window, and couldn't think of anything else, but my mother's locket. Where could it be? Had it all of a sudden grown a pair of legs and stomped out of the house? That did not sound logical! But it was the best explanation I could come up with...
...Until I opened the door and saw the most peculiar of pictures: Miss Picksby, red and breathy, holding a fear-filled Bast, whose terrified eyes seemed as though they were going to pop out of their sockets, and in the cats mouth... There was the locket that I've been searching for all over the house! It didn't look like Bast had been about to eat it... More like she'd just decided to take an early morning stroll with the family heirloom in her mouth. so that she could show off with it. It was cute, and annoying, and frustrating...
And then Miss Picksby opened her mouth, which felt like a volcano had erupted, and started talking about cats, and careless pet-owners, and early mornings, and my new hair-color, and carpet cleaning, and life, death... I swear to you, I have no idea how she managed to mingle everything together, but she did and I was lost for words.
Then Michael came down the stairs, my knight in a shining armour, and Miss Picksby set her sight on him.
Then the "volcano" "erupted" again.
Michael laughed so hard at the sight of poor depressed Bast with the locket in her mouth, that tears started falling down his cheeks.
I laughed as well.
Miss Picksby roared and roared.
If there was anyone left asleep in the neighbourhood by the time she finished, then they were either deaf...
...or her poor brother Mr. Picksby.
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