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“Lilies,” Lucas said quietly, and Aviva looked up to see that he’d been studying her while she studied the bracelet.

“Pardon?”

“They’re lilies, made of diamonds,” he said. “Here, do you want to hold it?”

Aviva took the bracelet from him as carefully as she could.

It sparkled, even in the pale light of Lucas’s office, and it felt heavy in her hand.

Did it carry the weight of what it had witnessed?

Had it seen what became of Colette’s sister?

“Where did you come from?” she murmured as she turned the piece side to side, admiring the way the gems caught the light.

“Are you talking to the bracelet?” Lucas asked, sounding amused.

Aviva looked up, feeling foolish. “Er, I was just saying that it’s very unique.”

“It’s one of a kind,” Lucas said, his voice suddenly tender, and Aviva had to bite her tongue to stop herself from telling him that no, actually, it was two of a kind.

“When we mount themed exhibits, like the one we’re about to open, we often reach out to collectors who have pieces that fit.

In this case, as you probably know, the show that opens Friday features pieces from Europe, handcrafted around the turn of the last century.

This piece was made in the 1920s, between the two world wars. ”

“Fascinating. Who loaned it to the museum?” Aviva asked, trying to keep her tone casual.

Lucas’s eyes moved from the bracelet to her face, and he lingered there for a second, like he was still trying to figure something out. “I’m afraid the owner wishes to remain anonymous.”

“Off the record,” Aviva said, trying a conspiratorial wink, which only earned her a frown of confusion.

Lucas plucked the bracelet from her hand, and she resisted the urge to grab it back. “I’m afraid I can’t reveal that.”

“Are they from France?” she persisted, knowing immediately that she’d gone too far.

He didn’t answer her until after he had slipped the bracelet gently back into the velvet bag, returned it to the safe, and locked the door. “What makes you say that?” he asked, turning back to her.

“Just a guess. It looks like something someone would wear in Paris.” Okay, now she just sounded like an idiot.

He stared at her for a moment. “The owner is originally from France, yes,” he conceded, not quite an answer, but she knew it was all she was going to get. “Is there anything else?”

She knew she had to somehow salvage this situation.

She hadn’t been subtle enough in asking about the bracelet, and now he was suspicious.

“Uh, blood diamonds!” she blurted out, and the second the words were out of her mouth, she knew it had been the wrong thing to say.

She tried to recover. “What I mean is, how do you make sure the newer diamonds in your pieces are ethically sourced? For the newsletter.”

Lucas’s expression grew even colder. “What on earth does that have to do with the Boston Center for Holocaust Education?”

“Well, I—”

“Look, that’s something I take very seriously, okay?

” Lucas said. “Diamonds come from the earth itself, and when they’re sourced ethically, and cut expertly, they’re beautiful and enduring.

But when there’s blood on the hands of the companies that mine the diamonds, it stains the jewels forever.

Yes, some of the older pieces we have were almost certainly mined irresponsibly, but it’s important to me—to this museum—to work with the Natural Diamond Council, which ensures that diamonds are now mined both ethically and sustainably going forward. Okay?”

“Right, sure, of course,” Aviva said quietly. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“The council makes sure not only that diamond mining is done correctly, but that it also supports more than ten million people worldwide through things like local employment, taxes, education, and social programs. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s very important to me to try to play a role in doing right by the people who bring these stones up from the earth. ”

“I believe you,” Aviva said. “This isn’t a smear piece, I promise. We’re, ah—not really a hard-hitting newsletter.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and slowly, Lucas’s face relaxed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get so defensive. I’ve had a few bad experiences with journalists with ulterior motives.”

“I’m not exactly a journalist.”

“My experiences with attorneys haven’t been much better. Nor have my experiences with people who show up unannounced asking strange questions.” He raised his eyebrows at her.

Aviva forced a smile. “I’m just interested in where the pieces of jewelry have come from. I think the ones like the bracelet, the ones that have traveled through decades and across oceans, must have really interesting stories.”

“Yes, they do.”

“And the truth is, my mom was a Holocaust survivor. She was born in Belgium in 1940 and survived the war there in hiding with her parents.” Aviva rarely shared that with people, and she wasn’t sure why she was telling him now.

“Sometimes I get too emotional when I think about all the things taken from people like her.”

“I’m very sorry she went through that. Truly.

But I don’t have any reason to believe the bracelet was stolen, Aviva.

” He paused and pulled a business card from his wallet, handing it to her.

“Look, our opening night gala is tomorrow. Why don’t you come?

Bring a date if you want.” His gaze flicked to her empty ring finger and back up.

“You can get a better sense of what we’re doing here, and maybe that will help with your news story. ”

She pocketed his card. “The bracelet will be on display?”

He smiled slightly. “That’s the plan. As someone wise recently pointed out, you do, in fact, need jewels for a jewel exhibit.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Then I know just who I’ll bring.”

Colette had saved Aviva’s life. Aviva had never said those words aloud, but she hoped the older woman knew how much it had meant to her that she had stepped in without hesitation when Aviva’s mother had died.

Losing your only parent at eighteen was a strange thing. At eighteen, you were legally an adult, so there was no one from the state insisting that you be cared for. But Aviva had still been in high school; how was she supposed to live, never mind survive the grief?

It wasn’t the first time she’d been left behind.

The difference was that her father—whom she barely remembered—had left by choice when she was three, walking away from her mother and from her because he’d met another woman he wanted to start a family with.

She had found him on social media a few years ago, smiling out from a photograph on his daughter Sharlene’s Facebook page, sandwiched between his three adult children.

“Happy Father’s Day to the best dad!” Sharlene had captioned the photo, and Aviva had wanted to throw up.

She had reached out to him just once, and the memory of it still mortified her.

It had been the day after her mother had died.

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave the hospital waiting room, for where was there to go?

Her mother was here, and her mother was all she had.

Her mother’s sister, Jan, who Aviva had called when her mother had been brought in the night before, had arrived around nine o’clock in the morning.

Jan’s eyes were dry, though she had just been informed that her sister was dead.

“Time to go home, honey,” she had said loudly, like a savior, putting an arm around Aviva as Aviva stood.

“To your home?” Aviva had whimpered, forgetting for a moment that her mother and Jan didn’t get along, that she hadn’t actually seen her aunt in more than a year, though Jan and her husband Robert lived only fifteen minutes away.

Jan pulled her arm from Aviva’s shoulders, like she’d been burned. “Well, no, hon. To yours.”

“But… I can’t be there. Not without my mom,” Aviva had said. “My mom’s dead,” she added, trying the words on for size, though they didn’t yet feel real.

Jan’s bright smile was performative and didn’t reach her eyes. “I think you’ll be better off with your house and your things,” she’d said. “You know how your uncle Robert is about unannounced company.”

Aviva had known then that her aunt and uncle would not be taking her in, and since they were her only living relatives aside from her father and three half sisters she’d never met, she knew exactly where that left her. Alone. Eighteen and completely, utterly by herself.

“I’m going to stay,” she said, taking a step back from Jan.

“Here?” Jan glanced around, the phony smile still plastered on her face. “You can’t stay here, hon. It’s a hospital waiting room.”

Aviva sat defiantly down in one of the uncomfortable plastic seats and crossed her arms. “Thanks for coming,” she said, refusing to even look at Jan.

Jan stood there for a moment, muttered something about Aviva being ungrateful and rude, and left without another word.

Aviva hadn’t realized she was crying until a grandfatherly man who’d been reading a book nearby moved to sit beside her and handed her a tissue. “I couldn’t help but overhear about your mother. I’m so sorry,” the man said gently. “Is there someone else you can call, dear?”

Aviva racked her brain and came up pitifully empty. “I don’t—”

“What about your father?” the man asked, and Aviva found herself nodding.

“I’ll call my father,” Aviva said, and the man smiled in satisfaction, as if he had solved a complex mystery.

That’s how Aviva had come to wander, in a daze, to a pay phone, to pick up the well-worn copy of the white pages beneath it, and to look up a man she knew had lived across town for all of these years but had never come to see her.

“Hello?”