The man behind the counter looked up when I approached.

“What can I do for you?”

“I need to sell these.”

He picked up one earring, placed a jeweler’s loupe over his eye, and leaned in.

Then his hands started shaking.

The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.

He turned the piece over slowly. Froze.

My stomach dropped. “What?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just shut his eyes for a moment, like he was steadying himself.

“Where did you get these?” he asked.

“My grandmother.”

“What was her name?”

I told him.

He swallowed hard, then reached under the counter and pulled out an old photograph. He set it down in front of me.

I stared.

It was her. Young. Smiling in a way I had never seen before. And beside her—him. Younger, but unmistakably the same man.

She was wearing the earrings.

I looked up slowly. “Who are you?”

His voice came out rough. “Someone who’s been waiting a very long time for one of her people to walk through that door.”

Nothing about that made sense.

He turned one earring again and pointed to a tiny mark near the clasp.

“My name is Walter.”

“Why do you have that photo?”

He glanced down at it, then back at me. “Because I loved your grandmother.”

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