Whose Angel Keyring Read Free

you were born. Your dear parents only want what’s best for you. And if there’s something for you to know, they’ll tell you when the time is right.”
    Mommy always said “Love heals.” But he was loving her as much as he could. Why wasn’t she getting better? What worried him was, if Mommy stayed sick, was it because he didn’t love her enough?
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    It was Mrs. C. who’d first taken James into her confidence about the hidden compartment. With her husband, she had discussed her plan to leave a special letter, and they’d agreed. They’d lock it away. They charged James to be the keeper of the letter —and of the key.
    James adored Mrs. C. Her illness was intolerable to him, as intolerable as the end of the British Empire. Certain things were meant to last forever. But he kept his grief under wraps. It wouldn’t do for the family butler to go around blowing his nose. It wouldn’t do to affront the master with open sentimentality. It wouldn’t do to frighten the boy. So James added a little more starch to his collars and pretended allergies had irritated his eyes.
    But Mrs. C. knew. Maddeningly, it was she who comforted everyone else. That was her way. Elegant and thoughtful to the last. She’d even written a letter to young Master Zackery. A letter he’d be ready to read as a young man.
    “When, Madame?” James asked.
    She grew pensive. “I don’t exactly know, James. I think we should trust to Providence on this one.” That was one of her favorite expressions. Mentally, he always tried to remember the word wasn’t necessarily synonymous with Fate. Two sisters, they were, Fate and Providence: the shadow and the light; the devious and the revelatory.
    Mrs. C. continued. “If he’s turning forty, and he still hasn’t read it, you better dig it out.”
    They had a good laugh, then. Laughed so hard they had cried. “Sorry,” they’d both said, drying their eyes and recovering their composure. Then she returned to answering his question. “But I think the key will tell you.”
    “The key, Madame?”
    “Sounds absurd, I know. But I found this beautiful angel key ring at one of the antique shows. I knew it would fit perfectly with the little key to the compartment. There’s something special about it, I think, because I dreamt about it. Put it away someplace, James.” She handed him the gold key with its angel fob, pressing it into his palm. “Put it away and forget about it. Sometime it will show itself. When it does, that’ll be the time.”
    Not quite understanding, he took her instructions on faith. Things always worked out when he did.

    Cynthia tossed items from her boxes with abandon. Not in this lifetime would she need those silver sandals again. The heels were too high anyway—she was lucky she hadn’t broken her ankle wearing them. So what if they made Zackery give her a hungry look. She didn’t want any more of
    those either. The jeans she’d forgotten about and replaced. The
    hairbrush had lost too many of its bristles. She never wanted to see the books again, with her personalized messages inscribed to him. She was glad to find the Lauder compact—it was fairly new. And she hadn’t decided what to do, yet, about their matching bathrobes.
    Keep them for a rainy day , she thought, laughing bitterly at the memory. They’d been in his hot tub when it started to rain. They grabbed for their robes but still got soaked, the heavy terrycloth dragging them back into the deep water, where they laughed and smothered each other in kisses. Quickly she folded the huge, white robes, then carried them to her linen closet. Standing on tiptoe, she stuffed them onto the top shelf, then slammed the door.
    Grabbing a kitchen knife, she returned to the boxes and began cutting the packing tape that held them together, then breaking them down to lie flat. Slicing into the tape on the last box, she heard something fall to the living room carpet with a soft, metallic sound. Dismissing it at first, she