But she was also, I suspect, another thing Julian used and would have discarded, a younger and prettier tool than my son but a tool all the same, and the necklace I unclasped from her throat was, in the end, one more of his stolen goods that she had let herself be adorned with.

So when I said I believe this belongs to me, I was not truly speaking to her.

I was speaking to the whole of it — to the two years, to the lie, to the version of myself that had let a necklace sit locked in a box because a man told me it was too precious to wear.

That was the thing I was reclaiming, with that gentle click.

Not just a piece of jewelry.