“Don’t be,” he said, offering a fragile smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s a good memory, really. Just a powerful one. She bought that pendant on a trip we took, a long time before life got… complicated.” He fell silent again, but this quiet felt different—not a wall, but an open door he was deciding whether to walk through. He gave a slow, understanding nod, but remained silent, his eyes lingering on the pendant with an intensity that seemed to pull memories from a deep well.
The quiet stretched, filled only by the plane’s steady hum. Elise waited, her earlier curiosity now tempered by a deep reverence for his story. She asked no questions, simply letting her attentive silence be an invitation. She could see the internal struggle in the lines of his face—a war between speaking and staying sealed within his own history.
Finally, he drew a breath that seemed to rattle slightly in his chest. “Forgive an old man’s forwardness,” he began, his voice lower now, as if sharing a confidence. “The design… the particular curve of the leaf and the way the stem twists… it’s unmistakable. It was crafted by a jeweler in a small town outside Naples, during the war. There was only one who worked in that style.” He paused, his gaze turning inward, seeing a different time. “He didn’t make many. Said each one was for a story that needs remembering.”
Elise’s fingers closed around the pendant, feeling its familiar contours anew. Her grandmother had spoken of Italy, but always vaguely, a romantic part of a past she rarely detailed.
“We were in Paris,” he continued, his gaze drifting to the ceiling as if watching the memory play out. “It was our fifth anniversary. She saw it in a little shop window by the Seine and fell in love with it. Said the moon was a promise that what wanes will always wax full again.” He gave a soft, shaky chuckle. “She was poetic like that. I was just a young soldier then, on leave. Felt like the king of the world, buying it for her.”