After a pause, Aunt Lucy told her the story. Young Natalie, a trusting nurse’s aide, had met a handsome “sailor” on the riverfront one evening while out walking with friends. He was funny, charming, full of stories.
Natalie drifted away from her girlfriends and stayed with him. He bought her ice cream, made her laugh, and told her he was a sailor whose ship was docked in town for a week.
Natalie fell hard. Maybe that was when they had their picture taken together. Later, someone had reduced the photos to fit inside the locket.
Lucy knew about the romance because Natalie told her everything. She had been half envious herself. What luck, she thought, to meet such a handsome man.
For a week they saw each other constantly—walks, movies, long talks. Then Peter supposedly left town with his ship, promising to write and come back.
But a week later Natalie saw him again in town—this time wearing a white medical coat and carrying a doctor’s bag as he came out of someone’s house. She ran up to him, delighted. He recoiled and motioned for silence, then hurried off.
That evening he waited for her by her building and spun another story. He said he was an undercover police officer and had to play different roles for work. Natalie, deeply in love, believed him.
They kept seeing each other in secret. Before long, Anna’s grandmother, Elizabeth, found out. One day she came home and found Peter in the apartment with Natalie.
It was obvious they weren’t studying anything. Elizabeth threw him out and, in a fit of fury, even slapped him. It was the least “educational” thing the respected school administrator had ever done.
Then she sat in the kitchen and cried. Natalie cried too, insisting her mother was wrong and that she and Peter would marry soon.
Elizabeth didn’t believe a word of it. The young man struck her as slippery and dangerous. She forbade Natalie to see him again.
But Natalie was in love. Soon Peter gave her the gold locket.
“Mom, look—it’s real gold,” Natalie had said proudly. “Peter gave it to me. He loves me.”
Elizabeth had answered, “That’s exactly what worries me. A piece like that costs real money. Where did a so-called undercover officer get it?”
She told Natalie to return it at once or she’d throw it out herself. Frightened, Natalie gave the locket to Lucy for safekeeping.
At the time Lucy was renting a room from an older woman on the edge of town. She hid the locket in a glass jar and buried it under an apple tree where no one would find it.
Then things got much worse. Natalie was officially summoned to the police station.
There, in an investigator’s office, she learned the truth. A dangerous repeat offender had been arrested. He was known for gaining people’s trust and using disguises. That man was Peter.
Natalie was questioned because the police had been watching him and had seen him escort her home. They needed to know whether she was involved. She cried through the whole interview, humiliated and heartbroken.
In the end they believed she was innocent and let her go. But when they asked whether Peter had given her any expensive gifts, she lied. She said no.
She didn’t want to give up the locket. In spite of everything, she still loved him. When Elizabeth later asked whether the locket had been thrown away, Natalie finally confessed that Lucy had been holding it.
Elizabeth said nothing at the time. The next day she went to Lucy and demanded it back. Lucy, already aware of the scandal, dug up the jar and handed it over. She wanted no trouble with the police over stolen gold.
Elizabeth had intended to throw the locket away. But in the end, she didn’t. She must have been the one who hid it inside the rug.
Natalie went through the rest of her short life believing her mother had gotten rid of it. When she realized she was pregnant, she kept silent for a long time, afraid her mother would insist on the worst.
But Elizabeth understood. She hugged her daughter and said, calmly, “We’ll raise this child ourselves. She’ll be ours.”
And that was exactly what happened. Anna grew up loved and cared for by the two women closest to her. As for Peter, no one knew much for certain.
Natalie, still foolishly devoted to him, even went to the police later to ask where he was serving time and how he was doing. She was told he had died in prison.
That was the story. Aunt Lucy fell silent. Anna sat there stunned.
This was not the truth she had expected to hear about her father. But truth was truth. She stayed the night with her relatives and left early the next morning.
Before she went, she warmly invited them to visit her in the city anytime. Family shouldn’t drift that far apart for that long.
But when Anna stepped into her apartment, she stopped cold.
The place had been torn apart. Cabinet doors hung open. Clothes and papers were strewn across the floor. Furniture had been shoved away from the walls. Her potted cactus had been knocked over, the ceramic planter shattered.
The hall closet had been ransacked too. And the old rug lay crumpled in the entryway. Anna’s heart dropped. She remembered the hidden pocket.
Sure enough, the fabric had been ripped open. The locket was gone.
