The Sapphire Locket

Eleanor put the final touches on her restoration of an Amish chair. This week she had restored several chairs and two faded paintings. She was proud of her work. At precisely 12 o’clock she would take her lunch break and eat the lunch she had prepared for herself. She would walk exactly one mile to the city clock and back. During her walk, she would keep her head down so she would not make eye contact with anybody. She would go into the women’s bathroom and take off her sapphire locket and rub it and admire it. At precisely 1 o’clock she would put the locket back on and return to work, this time on a 16th century statue of Adonis.

As she worked to restore the statue, she stopped every now and then to rub the locket and gaze at it like it was a holy relic.

Andrew, the son of the owner, asked, “How long have you worked here, Eleanor?”

Startled, for he had broken her concentration, she said, “How long? Since I got out of college eleven years ago.” She turned to resume work on the statue.

Andrew remained by her and the statue. “That locket. You seem absorbed in it,” he continued. “It must mean something special to you.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “The Lorelei locket.” 

He waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t. “Eleanor,” he said, 

some things are just things. Not worth losing yourself over.” 

She continued to work on the statue. “Hmmmm,” she said, a half-hearted assent to his remark. 

At 5 o’clock she left Andy’s Antiques and walked home. She was a modestly dressed woman, slim, with her brunette hair pulled back in a bun, thick-lensed glasses, and a locket around her neck. Nobody paid attention to her. At home in her apartment that evening, she prepared her dinner and sat down to eat it at exactly 6 o’clock, as she always did. She had a pile of five books on her table. Three of the books, she had checked out from the public library. The other two, she had ordered online. She pored over the books, stopping to take a bite of dinner every now and then. She loved and adored this locket, which fascinated her. She wanted to know its history, who made it, and who had owned it. She felt that it held secrets from her childhood, and that it had a power that connected to her own fate.

She had nearly finished dinner when the phone rang. “Hello,” she said. “I’m eating dinner.”

“I’ll only take a second, Ellie,” said her brother David. “Party tomorrow night at my house.” David owned a large house. As an AI developer, he had sold a program for a substantial sum. “We’ll have the same crowd from high school, and many of your college friends will be there. I want you to come and join the fun.” 

“That’s short notice and I’m busy,” she said. She flipped through pages about lockets in one of her library books.

“Ellie,” is it the locket? You can’t let that thing run your life,” he said. 

“I have an appointment with a museum curator tomorrow. I must be prepared for it.”

“I know some people at the museum,” said David. “Who is it?”

“Mr. Murtaugh.”

“He’s about your age, I guess. Nice man. After you see him, you’ll be free to come to my party,” said David, who hung up.

The next day, having asked for an hour off, Eleanor strolled the two and a half miles to the city museum. At 10:15, as arranged, she met with Mr. Murtaugh. She showed him the locket, which piqued his interest. She refused to take it off for him, so he leaned close to her to inspect the locket with a magnifying glass. She smelled his cologne, bright and clear. His black beard was well-groomed and his eyes were intelligent and kind. He took his eyes off the magnifying glass for a moment and glanced at her eyes. She looked away.

“May I open it?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

He did, and inside the locket was a faded photograph of a woman. 

“That’s Lorelei,” she said. “An American heiress from Pennsylvania. I’m researching her background.” This revelation had deepened her obsession. She had becomes convinced the locket contained clues to solving the heiress’s fate, and perhaps, something more—like supernatural energy tied to wealth and destiny.

“What have you learned?” he asked as he sat back in his chair.

“Her father made a fortune running two railroads. She went to the best schools. She . . . disappeared in 1857 and was never seen again.”

“Would you mind if I kept the locket for a while to do my own research?”

She clutched the locket to her breast. “No, I can’t. I can’t let you do that.”

“For only a week.”

“No. No,” she said and abruptly stood up. “I have to keep it. Thank you for your time.” She walked out and returned to the antique shop, where she resumed her restoration of the sculpture.

That evening, as always, she ate her dinner at 6 o’clock while she flipped through pages of museum books about lockets. She had finished eating when a car honked outside. She pulled curtains aside and peered out her kitchen window. Her brother David was out of his Tesla and waving at her with a big smile. She timidly waved back. 

David knocked on the door, and when she opened it, he grabbed her arm and led her to the porch. “Time for the party, Ellie. All your friends are there.” 

“David, I’m working on a project. Leave me alone. And I need my purse.”

“Where is it? I’ll get it for you.”

She sighed. “It’s in the living room by the lamp.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

When he returned, Eleanor was walking down the street as fast as she could. She looked back. Seeing him, she increased her pace to a lope and a run.

David jumped in his Tesla and caught up with her. He drove beside her with his window down. “Ellie, you need to socialize more. You can’t spend your life fixated on that locket. Get in and we’ll go to the party.”

“I’m not dressed for a party.”

“It’s come as you are. I have your purse.” He held it up for her to see.

She went around the car, opened the passenger door, and hopped in. “All right. I hope you locked my door.”

“Of course.” He pressed the accelerator pedal and soon they joined the party. David’s house—to be more accurate, David’s mansion—had a huge living room, as big as many ballrooms. Some forty people milled about with drinks and canapés in hand. A caterer had taken a table in one corner, where he prepared prime rib, chicken, roast beef, salmon, hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, rolls, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, green salads, fruit salads, pies, and cakes. A violinist strolled about, playing a mix of classical songs and folk songs such as “Turkey in the Straw.”

Several friends from high school and college greeted Eleanor, who smiled shyly at each of them, and to her surprise, Mr. Murtaugh said hello and gave her a hug. “I have some information that might interest you,” he said. He took her to a private corner. “That locket was made by Birmingham and Company. That made no ordinary lockets. Their lockets always had secret compartments that opened in a special way.” Eleanor was excited. “If you don’t mind, I’ll try my skills on it.” He took the locket in hand, and with a toothpick he pressed three places inside it. A small compartment opened. “Do you have tweezers in your purse?” he asked. She handed him a pair of tweezers. He delicately took hold of a piece of paper and pulled it from the secret compartment.

He spread the paper on a table and pulled out a magnifying glass. “It’s signed ‘Lorelei’,” he said. “She is writing her father with a good-bye. She says she still loves him, and she is determined to marry Moses Thompson despite her father’s disapproval. She wishes her father well and states that she will never see him again.”

“We need to find out about Moses and Lorelei Thompson,” Eleanor said. She rose to find a room with a computer and met her brother. 

“Anything I can do?” he asked.

“Will you do an internet search for me?” she asked. 

“Glad to,” he said. “Is it about the locket?”

She nodded and told him what she wanted. She sat with Mr. Murtaugh and enjoyed some of the catered dinner. David came over with a handful of papers he had printed out. He had found Moses and Lorelei Thompson and their descendants. He had also researched the history of Lorelei’s father. He discovered that Lorelei’s father had disapproved of the marriage because Moses Thompson was a black man who had escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. Lorelei’s father had put her share of the inheritance into a trust that would pay her descendants 100 years after her death. As she had died in 1924 at the ripe old age of 87, the trust would pay out in 2024.

“Who are the descendants who will inherit by the trust?” she asked.

“That’s where it gets tricky,” he said. “I have located a Thompson in Philadelphia who may be a descendant, or who will at least know something of the family history. Her name is Emma Thompson, and she lives here in Philadelphia. I called her and made an appointment to see her tomorrow morning. Would you like to go with me?”

She agreed to go, and Mr. Murtaugh was welcome to accompany her.

Emma Thompson’s hair was gray with dabs of white. She lived on the outskirts of the city in what can only be described as a hut. The boards in walls were warped and bent. She had no air conditioning or heating. She had a latrine outside her back door. A bra and two blouses hung clipped to a clothesline. Chickens clucked in coops in her backyard, their eggs her only source of income. Yet she warmly greeted the three people who came early to the appointment.

“I don’t get many visitors,” she said. “My husband died ten years ago, and my boy died in an auto accident last year. My daughter and her husband live in the city, and they don’t come by much to see me. May I get you coffee or tea?”

“No thanks,” said David. The four people walked across linoleum with pieces missing, and sat around a rickety wooden table in the kitchen.

She wore a tattered bathrobe and she kept pushing her glasses back up her nose after they slid down. She placed a dusty briefcase on the table and opened it. “I have some papers from our family history. I don’t understand all the deeds and legal papers. Would you like to take a look?”

“Do you know about the trust?” Eleanor asked.

“Girl, I don’t know about a trust. I lost my husband and I don’t trust nobody!”

Mr. Murtaugh asked, “Did you ever go to court about your husband’s assets?”

“We didn’t do no court, sir. He didn’t leave no Will, and he didn’t have any stuff to leave me anyway, ‘ceptin’ his clothes, which I threw out.”

Eleanor said, “By this family tree my brother made, your husband descended from Moses Thompson. Did your husband ever say anything about that?”

“He said once that he had a Moses as a grandfather or somethin’. That was a long time ago, he said, and I don’t know the details.”

David asked, “Did your husband have any brothers or sisters?”

“None that I knowed of,” she said. 

Mr. Murtaugh said, “That means you’re the last descendant of Moses Thompson.”

“That’s a good thing, I suppose,” she said.

Eleanor said, “That means that you may claim everything in the trust.”

David said, “That could be millions of dollars.”

Emma said, “Why, I don’t know about any of this. I’ll have to talk to some friends.”

David said, “That’s fine. In the meantime, I spoke to the lawyer for the trust. He plans to release the funds to you after he finishes his analysis.”

Emma said, “This is God’s work. Thank you, Lord.”

David said, “I invite you to live in my house. I have five spare bedrooms. You may choose the one you want.”

Emma said, “Thank you, thank you, Lord. But what about my chickens?”

Eleanor said, “He’ll relocate them to his back yard. They’ll always be close to you.”

Mr. Murtaugh asked Eleanor, “Would you like to work at the museum? That work would fit you better than the work at the antique shop.”

Eleanor said, “I will have to think that over. I have a restoration to complete.”

A month later, and people’s lives had changed. Emma resided at David’s mansion, where her daughter and her husband visited her daily. Her chickens were happy in the back yard.

Eleanor had left her job at Andy’s Antiques and became a curator at the museum. She and Mr. Murtaugh (she called him Michael now) often worked together on exhibits and other projects. On weekdays they walked hand in hand to a restaurant, where they sat down to lunch at precisely noon.

And the locket? Eleanor held onto it so long as it kept its hold on her. Michael prodded her each day to decide what to do. 

One evening Eleanor and Michael had dinner with David and Emma at his mansion. After dinner, she stood and announced, “The time has come for me to let this locket it go. It is beautiful but I have devoted too much time and energy to it. I hereby bestow it on its proper owner, Emma.” 

And Emma proudly wore it each day.

The End