Ethan pulled at the grate to pry it loose.
“Not working,” Annie said, shaking her head.
“Crowbar?” Em asked, reaching for a solution. Any solution.
Ethan frowned. “Maybe? Dunno. You have a crowbar? I don’t have one.”
Like a badass, Emmaline pulled her cell from her pocket and flicked on the flashlight.
There, lo and behold, in all the yuck, was a floating, beaded friendship bracelet.
“It’s right there,” Fiona said, desperately, dropping to her hands and knees.
“We’re coming for you,” she assured the bracelet like it meant everything to her.
“Dad, save it,” Annie begged.
Ethan scratched at his head. “Can’t ya just make another one?”
Yeah. That. What he said.
“This one is special,” Fiona said, softly, with reverence.
Perhaps Em had misread her daughter; it wouldn’t be the first time. Because she hadn’t seen that look in Fiona’s eyes before—the desperation and fear of losing something important.
Fiona hadn’t had that look when Em and her ex announced the divorce. Not when she and Fiona had hopped on the plane to Denver. Not as they’d unpacked. Not even as they’d argued about midnight marshmallows, or Fiona’s wish to adopt a beagle.
That tone in her daughter’s voice? Yeah, Emmaline would go after the bracelet.
She handed the cell over to Ethan, saying, “I’m going in.”
Ethan raised his eyebrows and flicked his gaze from the floating bracelet to Emmaline like she’d forgotten how to use her brain.
“Well, it’s not likeyourarm’s gonna fit,” Emmaline pointed out.
“Don’t do it, Em,” Ethan said, his lips twitching at the sides because they both seemed to know she was absolutely going to do it. “This is a bloody bad idea…”
Emmaline nodded, but that didn’t stop her as she rubbed her arms, pushed her shirtsleeves up, and reached her hand through the grate to search for the bracelet.
The bracelet that slipped between her fingers in the hot gutter runoff water.
Water that did not smell good.
Emmaline gagged.
On a scale of boogers to vomit, this was a solid pukefest.
Ethan pressed his arm against his face. “What on earth dropped in the drain to make it smell so horrible?”
Emmaline wrinkled her nose and breathed through her mouth.
“I’ve got it,” she said, finally getting a good grip on the bracelet and holding back any more gagging.
Fiona whooped with delight. And for the first time in a long time, Em actually felt like she’d done something good. Something right. Something to be proud of.
Was it rescuing a ten-cent bracelet? Yes.
Did that matter? No.
