A Stolen Bracelet

by Carlyn Davidson

When June was a kid, she imagined her own death. Not because she wanted to die, but because she wanted to know what would happen. Would her mother cry? Would her perfect older sister enjoy being an only child? Would her friends move on, quickly filling her spot in the group with someone new? How full would the funeral be? 

June was twenty-two now, and her mother had beat her to it. A four-year-long streak of silence between them had been turned into a permanent one. 

A call from her sister Ronnie, a number that she swore she would block but never quite did, led to her pulling into the driveway of her childhood home. Birds pecked at the disappearing seeds in the feeder, not knowing that it wouldn’t be refilled. The hydrangeas in the front yard had outlived the woman taking care of them, though they were beginning to droop.  

June used a key that she had spent half an hour trying to find after discovering it was no longer kept under a fake rock by the door. She didn’t bother to take her shoes off as she stepped inside, despite her mother’s disapproving complaints in her head. She dropped her keys on a table next to a framed photo of Ronnie in a cap and gown. 

Voices from the kitchen grew louder as June approached, but stopped once she was in eyesight. Ronnie and their Uncle Scott were both looking at June as if she were an alien from Mars. June slipped her hands into her jean pockets and silently challenged them to speak whatever it was on their minds.  

Neither of them did, but Uncle Scott did break the silence. “Your mother had a letter for you both.”  

That was it. First words in four years, and it was all about some words on a loose page likely torn out of a notebook. It wasn’t even in an envelope. 

Curiosity and selfish impatience led to June snatching the letter first, and Ronnie silenced her frustration, just as June knew she would. After unraveling the delicately-folded piece of paper in her hands, June’s eyes fell on the opening line. The letter was addressed to both daughters, and June immediately felt uncomfortable with the assumption that she would show up when called, especially given that it was correct. 

Their mother, Veronica Cantrell as it will read on her gravestone, wrote in a half-cursive handwriting that was aesthetically pleasing but a nightmare to read. June could read it, of course. She knew every letter that made up the “happy birthday June” on the cards she never appreciated as a kid, as every birthday celebration was spoiled by comparisons to what Ronnie got a month ago. She knew every letter that made up the writing on the chore chart, where June would stare at her overachieving sister’s long list of gold stars. She knew every letter that she replicated in forged notes to her teachers, which brought memories of the trouble she got into when Veronica found out. 

June could read the handwriting so well that the thought of doing it was unbearable. She passed the letter to Ronnie. 

Ronnie read the letter aloud, and each sniffle that interrupted her words aggravated June more. June wanted to snap, “yes, yes, Mom’s dead, devastating. Get on with it.” She wished Ronnie had learned to simply not feel—after all, it came so naturally to June. The fact that Ronnie hadn’t learned that skill pissed June off. She hated that Ronnie had the privilege to cry over a woman that June mourned years ago. 

Just as June’s bitterness began to boil into something that threatened to spill out of her, Ronnie came to a sentence that caught June’s attention. 

“My biggest regret,” Veronica spoke through her eldest daughter’s voice, “is never reconciling with my sister, and I am sorry that I have allowed you two to suffer the same fate. If you do one thing for me after I am gone, please find Jackie and return the topaz bracelet. It’s hers.” 

Grateful for the opportunity to focus on something other than Ronnie’s display of emotions, June grabbed the topaz bracelet off the table and watched the light shimmer off it. It looked decently expensive, silver with blue topaz gemstones. June remembered her confusion upon seeing it in her mother’s jewelry box as a kid. She never saw her mother wearing it, and her mother hated the color blue. 

To no one in particular, June muttered, “I almost forgot we had an aunt.”  

Scott passed Ronnie a half-empty tissue box from the table as he spoke. “I imagine she wanted to forget that herself. She acted like Jackie’s name was a curse word whenever I’d say it.”  

“What was she like?” June mumbled her words in a tone she hoped came across as emotionally-detached small talk as she clasped the bracelet onto her wrist. 

“A lot like you.” Scott’s eyes studied June, and she could feel it burning into her without meeting the eye contact. “Free-spirited, independent. A troublemaker. The total opposite of your mother.”  

It was Ronnie, tissue in hand, who asked the burning question about the bracelet in the wrong hands. Her voice was meeker than June’s would have been, but the job got done. 

Scott told the story from his youth the best he remembered it, from the perspective of a kid watching a dumpster fire. It was a messy tale of teenage twin girls and a competition for a scholarship—their only chance to go to college on their family’s budget—and the hurt that resulted when it went to the “wrong” sister. Wrong in the eyes of Veronica, who tried to do everything right and saw Jackie as everything wrong, who had worked so hard and believed Jackie stole a victory she didn’t deserve. So Veronica stole the most valuable thing Jackie had, a bracelet gifted by a friend with more throwaway money than the Cantrells could dream of at the time. 

A wrong that was now in the hands of her daughters to right, and according to the address Scott gave, it would take a two-hour drive to do so. June had walked in hoping to grab a few belongings that she could sell and be out before dealing with the tears or yelling or the icky emotions, and now she had just signed up for about four hours of it all. She groaned, of course, but she complied. The bitter, independent thoughts that often ruled her suggested that she take the selfish route and leave, but for once, they had lost control of June’s actions. She wasn’t truly sure what was guiding her now and she wasn’t willing to find out, because it was better to not know than to remember she isn’t all independence and bitterness. So, letting a mysterious force take the wheel without a single question why, she found herself offering her own car for the trip—by insulting Ronnie’s piece of junk on wheels, of course, she wasn’t that nice. 

The road trip was off to a bad start from the moment Ronnie got in June’s car. She didn’t find the humor in the sassy bumper stickers, and June’s snort in response didn’t teach it to her. She whined about the mess, to which June defended herself by saying she didn’t expect to host company in her car. Ronnie insisted it was the principle, and June tuned her out after a few words. 

Things only got worse after an hour. One moment, June was loudly singing along to every curse word in a song she knew Ronnie hated. The next, the car was pathetically sputtering and losing life by the second. June kept her eyes on the road as if hoping some majestic being would appear to fix things, and she wouldn’t have to deal with the inevitable judgement. 

That majestic being never came, and the gas tank indicator kept pointing to “Empty”. 

“June, I swear to god—” 

June ignored the feeling in her gut as she pulled the car off to the side of the road. It used up its last ounces of life on the grass by a patch of trees. 

“Unbelievable.” Ronnie got out of the car. 

“Here we go again,” June muttered under her breath before following suit. 

“You let it run out of gas?! How do you not think to check that—” The inevitable lecture, yada, yada, yada. That’s all it ever was with Ronnie.  

“Oh, for God’s sake. Sorry not all of us are perfect!” 

Ronnie went silent and looked away. June realized a response wasn’t coming after a few seconds and rudely snorted as she gave up on waiting for one. She refused to go along with whatever pity party Ronnie was throwing herself now, so June turned her attention to her phone as she searched for the nearest place to buy gas.  

Ronnie said nothing for the entire walk, and with each step, June’s frustration boiled hotter. With absolutely no help from the stubborn breathing statue with her, June bought and filled a gas can. By the time they started back for the car, June was desperate to break her sister’s impromptu vow of silence. 

“That’s the lamest thing you could be insulted about. I basically complimented you.” 

Ronnie kept her arms crossed and her gaze in front of her. “We both know you didn’t mean it as a compliment.” 

“You don’t know how I meant it.” June spoke so sure, because she didn’t know how she meant it herself. Ronnie was annoyingly perfect, and it was a compliment meant to hurt and an insult attacking an admirable quality.  

Ronnie ended the conversation by refusing to participate. June accepted it for as long as she needed to fill the gas tank. 

The few seconds it took for the tank to fill felt like an eternity. June hated having nothing to drown out her thoughts, but scrolling on her phone brought nothing interesting and the storm inside her only grew. It had only been an hour and she was already harshly reminded of why she never let this mysterious force guide her—she knew what it was, even if she didn’t want to admit it, and there was a reason she locked her heart away. With it came pain as it always did, and June had felt enough of that in her lifetime. 

The gas tank clicked as it finished. June snapped herself out of her thoughts, slipped back into the car, and drowned out the world with her obnoxious music until her mind was blissfully bitter and independent once more. A bitter, independent soul found the humor in what disgusted others. It smiled in the face of glares. That was the life June had chosen long ago, and by now, it was her comfort. Ronnie’s disapproval couldn’t hurt her if pissing her off was a game June won with ease. 

An hour later, the sisters spent about ten minutes trying to find the correct house in the neighborhood and arguing with each other about the right way to go. When they finally found it, they bickered about who should knock on the door or what to say, going on for what would have been an eternity if not interrupted by the door opening. 

The woman now looking at them with a raised eyebrow appeared familiar and strange at the same time. She wasn’t identical to her twin sister, but the resemblance was there. The same brown eyes, the same curly hair, the same Roman nose.  

“Oh. Uhm.” June internally cursed herself for being awkward, but what was she supposed to say to an aunt she’s never known? “I’m your niece and this is yours.” She held out the bracelet. 

Jackie took the bracelet from June and inspected it. Familiarity filled her eyes, and her expression was unreadable when she looked from June to Ronnie. It took her a long moment to find the words, and waiting was agonizing. “I… guess we have a lot to talk about then. Come on in.” 

Introductions were as awkward as the stiff sitting positions that June and Ronnie now took on Jackie’s couch covered in hair from some skittish cat they couldn’t see. Ronnie answered for both herself and June when she declined the polite offer for water, but now June’s throat felt dry. 

Jackie sat down on the chair across from them. Her eyes were fixed on Ronnie specifically. “I’m not surprised she passed on the family name. I’m surprised she let you shorten it.” 

Veronica Cantrell was always proud to bear her full name. Her gravestone will match her namesake mother’s before her, the years being the only sign of an individual life led, with space to the left for Ronnie’s gravestone to match it one day. 

“It wasn’t her call to make.” 

“Hm.” Jackie shifted her focus to June, who she studied like an animal in a lab, or a therapist with a patient, which was the same in June’s mind. “I like your hair.” 

“Oh—” It was possibly the last thing June expected from a family member, although she heard it from strangers often. June’s hair was a vibrant blue after she felt impulsive at 3am on a Tuesday night. “Thanks.” 

“When I was a kid, I did all sorts of things with my hair to piss off my mom.” Jackie laughed at the memory. “Cutting my hair, curling it—do you kids still sleep with curlers?” 

June ignored the question. “I’m not a kid, and I didn’t do it to piss off my mom.” Veronica had never seen June’s blue hair, but June would be lying if she said it didn’t make her smile to imagine how she would have reacted if she had. This game was full of constant wins. 

“Still.”  

Being analyzed, the implications and assumptions, the words withheld, it all made June antsy. “If you have something to say, spit it out.” 

“It’s just, you remind me of a younger version of myself.” Jackie said. “Acting out for attention?” 

“It’s not for attention!” June huffed. “You don’t know me.” 

“But you did act out?” 

That was certainly one way to describe it, though June wouldn’t like to admit it. Starting as young as she could get suspensions, June realized that if she got in trouble, people would stop expecting her to be like her prissy, rule-following, people-pleasing older sister. People would talk about her and drop the “Ronnie’s sister” or the “Veronica’s daughter”. As long as the name June was remembered, she didn’t care if it was written on notes for the principal. 

Veronica’s desperate attempts to correct this behavior only encouraged it, so naturally it only escalated with age. By high school, June impressed her peers and cute boys by going as far past the line as she could. A drunk 16-year-old June had laughed as Veronica screamed at her at one in the morning. When Veronica barred June’s window, she started using Ronnie’s room when its occupant was out studying.  

Everyone considered it a miracle when June went to college, but their fears were confirmed when she wasted it all. In her first semester, an irresponsible, curly-haired, barely sober guy wasting his parents’ money had lured her in with the little charm he had. The two lines on the pregnancy test had ruined June’s life. “Cool” ended at “complicated” as far as June’s friends were concerned, and they cut off ties to avoid making it their problem. The little charm that guy displayed disappeared with the rest of him, and June was truly alone even before the abortion that made her mother drive her out for good. 

June wouldn’t call it disownment, not really. She hated that place and got tired of being screamed at, so she chose to leave just as much as her mom wanted her gone. She could have stayed, maybe, as long as she agreed to become someone she wasn’t and repent for every action she’s taken since birth. It was… a mutual decision, she told herself. She’s better off this way, really. She repeated those words with a nod when she cried over the bills alone in her apartment. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” If June was anything, it was stubborn. 

Ronnie scoffed. 

“Of course.” Jackie was not convinced. 

“So what, you and Mom didn’t get along because you were a troublemaker?” Ronnie’s blunt tone was directed at Jackie, but her eyes glanced at June. 

Jackie snorted. “She hated me because I finally got something she didn’t. She thought she was better than me, so it was a slap in the face.” 

“Hate’s a strong word.”  

“She didn’t talk to me for decades.” Jackie looked at Ronnie. “What word would you use?” 

June cut in. “Did you hate Mom?” 

“I thought I did, when I was younger.” Jackie sported a far-off look as she fidgeted with the bracelet recently reunited with her wrist. “She was just so… perfect. In a way I could never be. It wasn’t hatred, really, it was jealousy.”  

Perfect. The word filled the silence after Jackie stopped talking, resonating with both sisters as they began to put the pieces together. Once again June could sense Ronnie’s eyes on her, but this time the gaze wasn’t judgmental, it was… curious. June still hated it. 

“If you were jealous of Mom, why did you act so…” Ronnie trailed off, but the message was implied.  

“Because I couldn’t be her. So why try?”  

Ronnie didn’t seem to understand the sentiment. “Because she’d like you more if you at least tried.”  

“But I would be losing myself.”  

Ronnie fell silent.  

The conversation seemed to have ended, and June decided not to make Ronnie be the one to address the elephant in the room. “Look, about Mom, she—” 

“I know.” Jackie’s tone was even, her gaze fixed on the floor. If there was emotion there, she hid it. “Scott called with the news.” 

After a shaky exhale, Ronnie calmed herself enough to ask a single question in a civil manner. “Will we see you at the funeral?” 

“Veronica has been dead to me for decades.” 

Ronnie’s attempts to calm herself were immediately thrown out the window. She rose to her feet with the force of her emotions. “What, over a stupid bracelet?!” 

“I don’t care about the bracelet.” Jackie glanced at it, then back to Ronnie. “But if she cared about having a relationship with me, she had over thirty years to reach out. She never did.” 

“You could have!” 

“Why would I talk to someone who doesn’t want to talk to me?” 

“That’s- Ugh!” Words failing her, Ronnie stormed out of the house. 

June paid Jackie a glance, but not a word, before getting up to follow her sister. She found Ronnie leaning forwards against the side of the car, looking entirely unlike herself. It wasn’t just her now-messy hair or the pathetic sobbing into her hands, but more so the way she seemed to shrink like a kid up against the harshness of the world, a world that typically seemed to bend to Ronnie’s very will. Now, having lost her elegance, she looked as if she could crumble into pieces at any second. 

June stood beside her, not knowing what to say. She hoped the silence would be enough, but she knew it wasn’t. 

Ronnie’s muffled voice emerged between sobs and sniffs. “They’re both idiots.” 

“Because of the… bracelet… thing?” 

“Because they never talked! They never- It’s all just…” Ronnie straightened her posture and wiped her wet hair out of her face. “It’s all bullshit.” 

June suddenly wondered if her sister had been replaced by an alien clone. She had heard plenty of curse words in her life, but never from Ronnie. This was so much more than just a bad conversation with an aunt they just met. 

“I- I know that Mom’s death must have… affected you…” There was a “but” in there somewhere, but June didn’t know what should come after it. 

Ronnie wiped snot from her nose, uncharacteristically unraveled. “Mom was the only family I had left.” 

The words sunk in, and June realized it should have been obvious long ago. Their dad had abandoned the sisters shortly after June’s birth, meaning June was the scapegoat and Ronnie had to overcompensate for her mother’s insecurities. Uncle Scott was nice when he brought his apple fritters to holidays, but he was boring, and making small talk with a man a few times a year doesn’t fill a hole in your heart. 

And June… Extenuating circumstances be damned, June had abandoned her, too. 

“Look, I, uhm… I… I just…” God, she wished she had a manual. 

Even at twenty-two, June still felt like a foolish idiot with no clue what she was doing. With the mask of perfection broken, she saw that in her mess of a sister right now. The three years of extra life that Ronnie had on June had given her no more wisdom, it seems. Being favored by a parent didn’t make Ronnie perfect, it just made a jealous enemy out of somebody that could have been an ally. Somebody that could have understood. 

Somebody who understood now, many years too late. 

Growing up, it had always seemed that Ronnie got their mother’s successes and June got their mother’s mistakes. But that wasn’t the case, not really. They were nothing more than two flesh beings made from the same womb, successes and mistakes alike. 

June looked at Ronnie now, and she didn’t see their mother. She saw the green eyes that Ronnie inherited from a man neither of them knew. She saw Ronnie’s wavy hair, a mix of their mother’s curly and their father’s board-straight, that resembled June more than anybody else. She saw her sister. 

“Did it bother you when I called you perfect because…” June watched Ronnie sniffle. “You’re not?” 

Ronnie’s tears intensified again. “I- I try so hard. It’s- it’s not easy, okay? It- it sucked. If you’re jealous… don’t be.”  

June saved her complaints about the word “jealous” for the sake of the moment. Part of her wanted to argue, scoffing and offering Ronnie to spend a day in her own shoes before she claims that her life is so hard… but she didn’t. The temporary satisfaction—if even that—that would be brought by starting another fight wasn’t worth losing what this had the potential to turn into.  

“I wasn’t allowed to make mistakes. I couldn’t… be human. Or myself. I had to be Mom’s clone.” Ronnie huffed as she wiped her cheeks. “Precious little Veronica ‘the Third’.” 

“What, did you not like your name?” 

“It wasn’t just a name. It was a shadow.” 

“The things we’ll do to escape that, huh?” June rubbed her arm. “You shortened your name, I got pregnant…” 

Ronnie snorted, a little semblance of laughter amidst her sobs. A flash of a smile crossed June’s face, then it passed and neither of them spoke, leaving Ronnie’s sniffles to be the only sound filling the space. 

June searched for something to say, but she didn’t have the courage to voice most of the pressing ones. There was so much needed, maybe an “I’m sorry”, though offering one now felt like trying to fix a crumbling house with duct tape. She didn’t want to be reminded of the weight of the task it would take to make things right. She just wanted to know if maybe, just maybe, their shared blood still tied them, even if just a little bit. 

Out of every inner voice in June’s mind—the angry, the hurt, the regretful—one stood out the most. June’s inner child. She was not the naïve angel on June’s shoulder, but instead a pained soul who sought out trouble in the day and swallowed her tears at night. There was one question that she had asked internally a thousand times but never given voice to, and it was that question that came to June right now. 

“If I died, would you be at my funeral?” 

In the split-second of silence that followed, June was filled with immediate regret. She felt as if she were walking into a battlefield without armor, bearing the scars of past stab wounds and inviting the knives to draw blood once more. She desperately wanted her mask back, the one she clung to so tightly she wasn’t sure it was fake anymore. Her inner child was an idiot for being so vulnerable, and she had paid the price for it time and time again until she learned how to mature. But here she was, feeling like she was ten years old again, small and weak and naïve and exposing everything that June hated about herself: including the bruised, trembling heart. 

A part of June hoped that the answer was no. She wanted her sister to scream “I hate you!” in her face. She wanted her worst fears to come true, so that she could be hurt one last time and learn that there is nothing good that can come from trying. So that she could never again let herself be guided by this “mysterious force”, when she knows full well who she was forced to become. If this bridge was truly nothing but ash, then June could give up and never, ever look back. Her new walls would be made of iron and her heart would never come out of its cage again. She would be perfect, not like Ronnie but in her own way—instead a twisted perfection achieved by stomping out her weaknesses until they were gone for good. June would be safe. That was all she really needed. 

The rest of June knew this was a lie. She couldn’t get rid of the pain by embracing it. Winning a made-up game wasn’t worth the glares she got. A bitter, independent life never truly protected her from pain, and she could never fully get rid of that annoying, vulnerable ounce of hope. 

When June took the risk of looking into her sister’s eyes, she saw that Ronnie looked offended by the very question, the very idea that a few years apart was enough to completely sever their ties. For once, that ounce of hope wasn’t squashed. For once, maybe she didn’t have to pretend she enjoyed the life she led. 

“Of course,” Ronnie answered, like it was the only option there was. “I don’t want to be like Mom and Jackie.” 

It wasn’t much. The bar was set low, and a lack of new pain did not equate to healing. But if Ronnie wasn’t perfect and June wasn’t heartless… maybe they weren’t quite what sisters should be, but they could be something. 

“I don’t either.” June spoke with a raw honesty that Ronnie didn’t often get the privilege of hearing. 

For the first time either of them could remember, the sisters finally agreed on something.

Carlyn Davis is a Psychology major at Columbia College who plans to become a therapist one day. She has always loved to write and hopes to publish a few books in addition to her career.

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