She still had several more stops to make that day, but she was surely not going to find anything that would top a treasure like this. Driving away, she glanced in her rearview mirror and noticed a twinkle in her eyes at the rush of excitement in discovering something new and the possibilities it held.
This was going to be a good day.
* * *
“Mom, the moving truck was here,” Noah said from the bottom of the stairs in the foyer.
Nina wiped the sweat from her forehead after switching the arrangement of dressers in her bedroom. Wait. Did he just say the truck was here? She called down to him. “You mean they’re here now?”
“No. They dropped everything off. I signed for it, and they left.”
Nina bounded down the staircase and stopped at the open front door. “Oh, Noah. You were supposed to let me know when they arrived. My car was blocking the driveway.” She met him at the foot of the stairs, upset that she wasn’t there to supervise the delivery.
He looked up at her with sad eyes. “I knew you were busy, so I decided to handle it. I thought I was helping.”
“Aww, that’s okay, honey,” she said with a tousle of his hair. “You did help me. C’mon. Let’s bring everything in. Your grandpa’s baseball cards are in those boxes.”
“Okay.” He took off and ran down the driveway.
As she approached the heap of boxes at the foot of the driveway, she noted with increasing dread that something was missing.
“Noah, did you take anything inside already?”
“No. I’ve been out here the whole time.”
“Did you watch the men unload the truck?”
“No. I was recording stuff on my phone. I came over to the truck when they called me to sign for it.”
Nina sighed and ran a hand through her hair, forcing herself to be patient. “Great-grandma Astrid’s antique lamp isn’t here. Did they give you a copy of the shipping papers?”
“Yeah.” He pulled the crinkled, rolled-up papers from his back pocket.
Nina unrolled them and reviewed the list of individual line items. The lamp was on the list and checked off as delivered. “What the f…” She looked around, baffled.
“What’s the matter, Mom?”
“I don’t understand. According to the paperwork, they delivered the lamp, so where is it? Damn. I’m gonna have to call them.”
After a lengthy discussion with the moving company concerning the whereabouts of her lamp and why the driver would entrust a ten-year-old to oversee the delivery, Nina returned to help Noah cart the remainder of boxes into their garage.
“Honey, you need to go through these boxes and make sure all your stuff is here.” She rambled on more to herself than to Noah, who was preoccupied on his phone. “The moving company assured me that they delivered everything correctly and didn’t leave any items on the truck. I don’t see how they can be so sure. I mean, clearly the lamp never made it here.” She sat down on a box, resting her head in her hands. “Of all the things to be lost, it had to be that lamp, my great-grandmother’s lamp.”
Oblivious to her suffering, he approached her and hovered over her. “Mom, look at this video I took.”
“Oh, honey, I’m in the middle of a micro mental breakdown now. Can I watch it after lunch?”
“It’ll only take two seconds. It’s two squirrels fighting in the front yard. It’s epic.”
She lifted her head out of her hands and watched as he played the video. He wasn’t overhyping it. The two squirrels threw down on the lawn, flipping each other over and then chasing each other until one retreated up a large oak tree on the perimeter of their property. Toward the end of the video, Nina noticed a gray sedan in the background.
“Play that again, from the beginning.” She watched the background of the video more closely this time and noticed the gray car seemed to be parked in front of the house for a moment and then drove away toward the end of the clip. “Noah, can you take a few screenshots of that car in background?”
“Yeah. Let me see.” He took the phone from her hand.
Maybe it wasn’t the movers’ faults after all. Maybe a thief was on the loose in their new neighborhood, and her son had caught the culprit on video fleeing the scene of the crime. She couldn’t imagine the nerve of someone stealing something out of her yard in broad daylight.
“Like this?” Noah handed her the phone.
She swiped through the series of enlarged screenshots and smiled. “Yes,” she exclaimed. “You got part of the license plate, too. Brilliant.” She grabbed him and wrapped him in a hug. “I’m contacting the police department. Maybe they’ve had other reports of thefts in the area. It’s worth a shot. Good job, buddy.”
His face lit up with pride at saving the day.
She ran inside to get her phone, hopeful the photos would lead to the return of her precious family heirloom.
* * *
As Daphne waited for her bowl of clam chowder to heat in the microwave, she stared at her vision board hanging on her kitchen wall. Its title, “Make it Happen,” outlined in glitter, always jumped out at her no matter where she stood. She smiled as she perused the images of hearts, various antiques, and a quaint antique shop glued all over it, along with several Carrie Fisher quotes. Her favorite was “Do not let what you think they think of you make you stop and question everything you are.” She’d added that one after recalling the last fight she’d had with Savannah during which Savannah accused her of being unmotivated and satisfied to forever subsist on the crumbs of life.
The remark had struck a painful chord but ultimately inspired her to formulate a concrete plan to achieve her dream—which she was absolutely going to do. Eventually. Sooner than later. Yes. She was going to make it happen.
And then the microwave beeped her back to reality. She carried her soup into the living room and sat on the couch in time to catch the end of the six o’clock news. She gazed lovingly at the lamp. It would never make it out of her living room and into her antique shop, when she actually opened one. Despite the frayed cord, it still worked, casting a warm glow over her living room.
“And finally tonight,” the anchor said. “A single mom received an unfortunate welcome to her new neighborhood in Madison this weekend when a bandit stole an antique lamp movers had just delivered.”
As the anchor spoke, video of an extremely attractive woman with full, glistening lips and brown, wavy hair poking out from a baseball cap streamed across the screen.
“Nina Colombo, a Greenwich native, told us that while she’s disappointed in the theft, she doesn’t believe her new neighbors are bad people.”
Daphne’s jaw dropped, and her chowder-laden spoon froze before her mouth in mid-air.
“I just want it back,” the woman said, seeming dejected. “Not for the monetary value but for the sentimental one. It’s part of my heritage. It originally belonged to my great-grandmother, but my grandmother brought it here when she emigrated from the UK in her youth. She left it to me, knowing how much I loved it growing up.”
The camera switched back to the anchor. “Colombo went on to say that her ninety-three-year-old grandmother had recently passed away, and she would pay a reward for the lamp’s safe return. Luckily, though, her son, Noah, had been outside recording his new neighborhood and caught a partial view of the vehicle on video as it fled the scene.”