I can't tell you how many hours I've spent with this necklace draped across my hands, each of my fingers holding a length of it apart from its fellows, my fingernails digging deep into a knot of its tiny, filament-thin links.

I haven't even had the necklace for very long. It came into my possession last summer, when I walked into my mother's bedroom only to find her sorting through a shoebox of sparkling metal and colorful plastic, jewelry collected throughout her life that had somehow fallen into obsolescence along the way.


....tbc