My chest tightened suddenly, making it hard to take a full breath.

“Why would my mother secretly give her most treasured family heirloom to a man living in her alley?” I asked.

“Because I bought that locket for her with my own pay when we were young,” Lucas said softly.

I stepped back onto the dry grass, staring at him as though he had spoken some impossible foreign tongue.

“When did that happen?” I managed, my voice shaking.

“She was hardly ten, sitting on the curb crying after an awful fight with our father,” Lucas said tenderly.