We accept the love we think we deserve.

My mother’s bracelet was made of tiny rich yellow gold dots connected on either side by delicate flat gold bands…imagine the bottom of a rope-bridge, except the planks are circles. I remember staring at it as a child, watching the light reflect off of it as I sat in the passenger seat of her 1985 Nissan. I’ve never seen another bracelet like it.

Until last Saturday, sitting in the back seat of my stepmother’s car. I watched her raise her right arm to do something, and gasped—she was wearing the bracelet.

The next day, I approached my father:

“Dad, did you give her mom’s gold bracelet?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She is wearing on her right wrist a bracelet that used to belong to mom.”
“What are you talking about? Why do you always have to watch her so carefully? It’s her own bracelet!”

I then told my father that it’s quite a coincidence that she happened to buy the exact same bracelet, and that there’s jewelry missing from my mother’s jewelry box.

Why he refuses to believe me, I have no idea. Shit, I have no idea why he even dated my stepmother, much less marry her and throw all of his money at her.

I mean, it’s pretty horrible to steal your dead friend’s husband, mistreat her children, and do it all while claiming to be a devout evangelical Christian.

But to steal your dead friend’s jewelry, and wear it? Especially when you probably have a suspicion that were she alive, she’s kick your ugly ass for doing all the things you’ve done to her daughters?

She must not have known how much my mother liked that bracelet. She couldn’t have known my mom wore it every day. She must have thought I wouldn’t remember what it looked like.

Sometimes I think I’m the only person who remembers my mother…my sister was so young, and my dad’s memories are tainted by his blindness to the things my stepmother does, in front of his face and behind his back.

But I remember a delicate gold bracelet, shining in the light while my mom moved her wrists to turn the steering wheel.