June Freeman Baswell

Issue 16

Flash Fiction

Bob gave me the necklace the year the King Tut exhibition opened in New York City. I wore it almost every day for forty years. It depicted the Egyptian god Horus as a falcon with outspread wings. Made of electroplated gold on nickel and cheaply enameled, it was one of thousands of such trinkets sold that year. More than I loved the necklace itself, I loved that Bob remembered how much I adored ancient Egyptian culture. An interest in past civilizations was one of the things we shared. We traveled the ancient world together on PBS, awed by its mystery and romance.

Several years ago I lost the necklace, and now he’s gone, too. I hunted everywhere in the house. In all the drawers. Under all the furniture. I even emptied out the hall closet. Nothing. I know it’s here somewhere. He’s here, too, though I can’t see him any more than I can see that necklace. He’s in the vignettes of Cleo, my dog, and Caesar, his cat, that he teased from a thin round of birch with a jigsaw blade even thinner. In the box with dovetail joints put together with such care and precision. In our daughter’s face. 

The necklace I ordered to replace Bob’s was a disappointment. The colors were not as brilliant; the electroplate was thinner. The chasing on the back of the pendant was not as skilled and the chain was flimsy. There was no glinting of life, of love, in the metal. I tossed it in with the tangle of necklaces in the bottom of my jewelry box.

Now I wear Bob’s wedding ring on my left hand beneath mine. How slender and fine his fingers were. And how clever. The past and the present, some say, exist at the very same time. I don’t know that I believe that. I’m not sure I want to. And yet, I yearn to revisit the day when Bob first clasped the necklace around my neck with those sure and steady hands. When I could see and touch him—not just the artifacts he left behind.