The Pendant by Keith Fowkes

The movers are in the living room. I hear them dropping things into boxes. They’re using rolls of clear plastic tape. The sound of packing tape being stretched across the seams is unique. If you’ve ever heard it, you’ll know what I mean.

I'm at the kitchen table with Aaron, my twelve-year-old great-grandson. He’s the only one still willing to play cribbage with me. Good kid, despite that haircut. Shaved sides with long bangs hiding his eyes whenever he studies his cards.

“Fifteen-two, fifteen-four, and a pair makes six,” Aaron says.

He lays his cards on the table. When he looks up, his brown eyes gleam with confidence. He's winning. Not bad for twelve. But at a hundred years old, I'm probably an easy mark.

I take a minute to check his hand. I push my glasses up my nose—need them for cards and books these days. My eyes still work, but better for distance than close-up. I reach towards Aaron's cards with my left hand. When I point, the finger crooks halfway, stiff as a rusty hinge, the joint catching on itself.

“Take another look,” I say. My voice is thin and raspy, like air pushing through dry reeds. Sometimes it fails altogether, forcing me to stop and begin again.

“You missed something,” I continue. I’m still pointing a shaky finger. My knuckles are swollen and the dry skin cracks and bleeds if I clench a fist. Cream doesn’t help much. The back of my hand is veined with lazy rivers.

I watch as Aaron carefully examines his cards. “Oh, one more fifteen!” he says with a smile. He reaches an agile hand to the board and moves the blue peg eight holes forward. He’s close to winning. It’ll take more than one good hand for me to catch him now.

I nod, laying my cards. Eight points for me too. Before I can speak, Stephanie marches in from the living room. "Gramps, which books are you taking, and which are for donation?" She stands there, Aaron's mother, my granddaughter—bossy and efficient.

I look to Aaron before replying. “Count my cards for me,” I say to him. Then I glance back to Stephanie. “It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, my voice wheezes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She folds her arms across her enormous bosom. I don’t know where she got her looks. Not her mother, that’s for sure. Not her grandmother either. I’ve outlived them both. She cocks her head to the side and takes a deep breath. We’ve had conversations like this before.

“Gramps,” Stephanie says, and I can tell by her stance that she’s frustrated. “We’re not getting into this again. Please don’t be difficult today. The house has been sold. Your room at Pine Grove is waiting. This is happening.”

Pine Grove is the retirement home she’s moving me into. It’s a nice place. I’ve been on a tour. But, I’m not going. She just doesn’t understand that yet.

"You have eight points," Aaron says. He moves the red peg ahead. "You don’t stand a chance," he adds. He's probably right.

“Take them with me,” I say to Stephanie, hoping she’ll bugger off back to the living room.

“You can’t take all the books with you,” she replies. “There won’t be enough room and, judging by the dust, most haven’t been opened in decades.”

I push the deck across the table. It’s Aaron’s turn to deal. “Donate them then,” I say.

Stephanie lets out a sigh. Loud on purpose, I think. “Fine, I’ll just make the decision myself.” She strides back into the living room.

Aaron reaches for the cards. He flicks his head to the side, swinging the long hair out of his eyes. He raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Well, you did tell her you don’t care,” he says.

I smile. Not too wide, or my dentures might slip. “A good woman is both hindrance and help," I say. "The trick is finding one that's more help than hindrance. With family, you get what you get." I shrug, my old shoulders moving stiffly. "Your mother is a good woman.”

Aaron’s face grimaces at my comment. He isn’t the best at shuffling cards, but he gets it done eventually. He slides out six cards to each of us. One of mine escapes the table and floats to the floor. I place a hand on the table to brace, and reach slowly down with the other. As I pinch the card off the carpet, my pendant slips past the unbuttoned top of my shirt and dangles around my neck. A small golden disc. No larger than a nickel, its face worn smooth after who knows how long.

I prop myself to a sitting position and Aaron looks at the pendant. Instinctively, I begin to rub it between my thumb and finger.

“Is it really good luck?” he asks.

I glance at the pendant, pausing while I decide how to answer. I’ve wanted to have this conversation with Aaron for a while. Now is a good time.

“Yes,” I reply, rubbing the worn surface with my thumb. People call it my lucky pendant, but they don’t know the half of it. If they did, they’d whisper about padded rooms. I lean closer. “Can you keep a secret?”

He tilts his head to the side, and eyes me with a look that says he’s trying to decide if I’m pulling his leg. “Yeah, I can keep a secret.” He says it like keeping secrets is the most natural thing in the world for a twelve-year-old.

The pendant rests gently in my hand, the chain slack around my fingers. The surface is smooth, but there are remnants of faded markings that I never could make out. Too many years have passed, I guess. Whatever was engraved into the metal has long since worn away, like the names lost on weathered gravestones.

I must have drifted off for a moment because Aaron pipes up, “So, what’s the secret?”

I glance towards the living room door. Sounds of packing fill the space, but I lower my voice and lean forward regardless. “It keeps me alive.”

Aaron had been looking at me when I spoke. Now he shifts his attention back to the pendant. “Ya right. Nice try.” He grins like I’m pulling his leg.

“I got it off a dead German soldier when I was in Italy.” The words send a shiver through me. The only one I ever told was my wife. She humoured me, even near the end, though she never believed. I can’t blame her—I might not have either.

Aaron’s eyebrows shoot up. His back straightens and he runs a hand through his hair. He has never heard me speak about the war. Mind you, I won’t tell him everything. Those memories are mine to keep.

“He was dying when we found him,” I continue, ignoring his scepticism. My thumb reflexively massages the smooth metal. “Well, truth be told, he should have already died.”

Aaron sits perfectly still. I have his full attention.

“He was sitting against the wall of a room. We had been fighting house to house. The buildings in Italy were connected to each other, you see. We’d break through the walls, moving from one to the next. “I don’t know when or how he was wounded, only that it wasn’t us.”

"Did you help him?” Aaron interrupted.

“We did what we could,” I tell Aaron, leaving out the worst of it. “Like I said, the man was already dying. The pendant hung around his neck, clenched tight in his fist. When the medic tore open his tunic to reach the wound, the chain snapped. His pleading eyes fixed on mine, mouth working soundlessly. Then his hand slackened, and he was gone.”

Aaron gathers the six cards in front of him. A habitual movement. He doesn’t look at them, just collects them like a mini deck. “That’s it? Why do you have it? Did you steal it or something?” His eyes dart to the pendant, and when I frown, he adds, “Kidding… kinda.”

I tuck the pendant into my shirt, the metal cool against my chest. “Soldiers brought things home—pistols, helmets, even flags. I never cared for that. But the way that boy’s fingers clung to this chain…” My thumb presses the disc through the thin fabric, tracing its edges. “It wasn’t just fear. He held it like it mattered more than breath.”

I pause to breathe. My voice needs breaks now and again. Continuing, I say, “I don’t think anyone else saw it. When he died, we moved on. Simple as that. He wasn’t the only dead German we saw that day.”

“But you picked up the pendant,” Aaron states it as fact.

“I did, yes. Something about the whole experience compelled me to pick it up. Now, I don’t use that word lightly. When I say compelled, I mean it. I needed to pick it up.” I squeeze one hand together, making a fist for emphasis. The cracks on my knuckles widen and I feel the light sting of skin splitting. “I’ve had this pendant for somewhere near eighty years. In my younger days, I only wore it occasionally. Now, I never take it off.

“Over time, I realized that whenever I wore the pendant I almost never got hurt—if I did, it was nothing serious. I felt stronger too. It sounds unbelievable, I know, but it was real. I could run faster, lift more—not like a superhero, mind you, but enough to notice. And I knew then why that German soldier had clutched it so tightly. Don’t ask me how I knew. I just did.”

I could try explaining exactly how I understood, but there really is no way to explain it to somebody else. Like the way you can sense a storm rolling in, even before the clouds gather. Instinct? Intuition?

Just as Aaron opens his mouth, Stephanie returns to the kitchen with a cardboard box. She starts talking before her legs stop moving. "Almost done packing," nodding back towards the living room. "We're leaving soon. Soup's in the fridge. I'll be back at nine tomorrow to take you to Pine Grove while they load the truck. Can you be ready?"

She’s my only grandchild and I still remember the day she was born, even though I can scarcely remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday. “If I’m still breathing,” I reply, giving Aaron a wink, and causing my watery eye to leak a little.

Stephanie just shakes her head and strides out the front door, the box of knick-knacks rattling in her arms.

I glance at Aaron as his mother disappears down the hall. “Aaron, one day the pendant will be yours.” I hadn’t meant for it to sound so final, but today every word feels heavier than the last.

“Alright,” he says after a pause, his eyes darting to the pendant and back to me.

I could ask him to promise me that he’ll wear it, but I don’t. He will put it on at some point, even if just out of curiosity. When he does, he’ll know too.

I hear the front door open and turn my head to see Stephanie enter the hall. “Time to go, Aaron,” she calls. “Say bye to your Great-Granddad and come get your shoes on, please.”

Aaron looks to me, and then the cribbage board. “I guess we can finish this next time?”

I lift a blue peg from its hole and place it in the final position. “You win,” I tell him. I feel moisture build at the corners of my eyes and this time it isn’t from winking. “Best not to keep your mother waiting.”

Aaron slides his chair back and stands. He looks at me like he wants to say something, but can’t think of the words. “Okay,” he manages at last. He hesitates for an extra second then moves towards the door.

Aaron forces his feet into the shoes without undoing the laces. Stephanie looks at me and says she’ll see me tomorrow. The movers file past silently.

I meet my granddaughter’s eyes and hold them. “Goodbye, Stephanie.” My voice cracks. A single tear loses its grip and slips down my wrinkled face. I think she’s too far away to notice because she gives me a quick wave and follows everyone else out the door.

* * *

Later that evening, I fold back the heavy down comforter on my bed and sit on the white sheet beneath. Moonlight spills through the window, casting pale shapes across the room. I inhale as fully as I can, smelling old memories. I’ve lived a long time. My hands tremble. I slip the pendant out from my pyjama shirt and hold it. I squeeze it hard. As hard as my withered muscles allow, the dull edges digging into my palm. Then I gently loop the chain up and over my head, lifting the pendant to eye level. In the dull light, I watch it spin a few times before settling. Carefully, I rest the golden disc on my bedside table—the chain spooling around a yellowed photo of a young war bride and her loving husband. I hoist each leg onto the bed, muscles trembling, then pull the comforter to my chin as my head meets the pillow.