I leaned forward, my knuckles pressing hard into the cool glass, trying to catch any fragment of the conversation over the dry hum of a cheap space heater on the floor.
“Yes,” Arthur said into the mouthpiece, his gaze fixed on the floorboards. “The engraving is exact. The blue sapphire is in the center of the silver setting.”
He went quiet, listening to the rapid, faint crackle of a woman’s voice on the other end of the line, his head nodding in slow, rhythmic intervals.
My right index finger worked the plain silver band on my hand, twisting it round and round until the skin underneath went red and pinched.
The yellow eviction notice was folded tight in my back pocket, a stiff square of paper pressing against my hip with every shift of my weight.
“I understand,” Arthur whispered, his eyes darting toward the front window where the morning light was beginning to pale. “I will hold her here as long as I can.”
He hung up the phone with a slow, deliberate click that seemed to echo in the narrow, dusty shop.
