“I’m sorry, Grandma,” I whispered. “I just need a little time.”
I slept very little, struggling between thoughts and hopes, searching for another solution. But morning came, and with it, reality.
The pawn shop was in the heart of downtown, a place people entered only when they had no other choice. A bell rang as I walked in the door.
“I have to sell it,” I said, placing the necklace on the counter.
The man who had designed it froze the moment he saw it.
His face paled.
“Where did you get it?” he whispered.
“It was my grandmother’s,” I replied. “I just need it to pay the rent.”
“What was her name?”
“Merinda.”
He staggered back, gripping the counter. “Miss… you need to sit down.”
My blood ran cold.
“Is it fake?”
“No,” she said, her voice shaking. “It’s all true.”
Before I could react, she snatched the phone from me.
“I have it. The necklace. She’s here.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
“Who are you calling?”
She looked at me with wide eyes. “Miss… someone’s been looking for you for twenty years.”
Before I could answer, the back door opened.
“Desire?”
She entered, older, but unmistakable. My grandmother’s best friend.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said, pulling me into an unexpected hug.
Then she told me the truth.
My grandmother wasn’t my biological grandmother.
She found me when I was a baby, alone, hiding in the bushes, with that necklace around my neck.
There was no name. No note. Only me.
She raised me anyway.
And Desiree had spent twenty years searching for my origins.
That necklace was the only clue.
“And now,” Desiree said softly, “I’ve found them.”
