The garnet stone was so hidden, no light could catch it. “What do you think about this one?” I asked my sister. We were at the shop together, scouring for a good find.
“I like it,” she said. “The stone is such a pretty color.”
I continued looking through the rings, but each was dull next to the garnet I was already holding. By the hour’s end, I knew what I wanted to buy. I handed the woman my credit card, and when she started packing the ring in a small box, I told her it was fine. “I want to wear it now,” I said. My sister and I headed home, the new ring snug around my finger. I twisted it round and round, trying to make it feel like my own.
“Isn’t it strange to wear someone else’s things?” my sister asked. Maybe, but old things also come with a story, one I can decide to hear an echo of in my own life. My great-grandmother’s typewriter — I could clack at the keys, writing poetry, and imagine her writing letters to her family overseas. My grandmother’s pearl bracelet, the one she got as a wedding gift — I often wore it on dates as a prayer that I’d see that blessing too. This new garnet — someone else wore it before me, although I didn’t know who or why or when.
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