"Well, there aren't any driveways

to shovel in May", I said to myself outloud, and even if there were, not this time. I took the stairs two at a time up to my bedroom. Chloe was snoozing in my bed and would be out for at least another hour and a half. I opened my sock drawer and lifted the sachet paper liner in the back corner and pulled out the the two-dollar bill I'd been hanging on to. I shut the drawer, made for the closet and pulled down the red velvet hat box from the top shelf. I rifled through everything--a pair of white evening gloves, a black beaded clutch, an atomizer, seamed stockings, my birth certificate, my prized (second-hand) fox fur muff, a nickle, two dirty pennies, and finally, the little blue suede, drawstring bag. I tugged it open and dumped it's contents into my hand. A pair of vintage screw-back, rhinestone earings, a thin, broken gold chain my mother had given me a couple of years before--it was broken when she offered it to me and I felt I should accept her generosity while she was in the mood. The last to tumble out were my grandma's emerald earrings my Aunt Grace had secretly pressed into my palm after my grandma died. I hated what I was going to do.