Chapter 3 — The Winter Dance of 1976
Helen Dawson and June Mercer had been best friends in high school.
They met at fourteen.
By sixteen, people rarely saw one without the other.
Helen loved photography.
June loved dancing.
Together they volunteered on nearly every school event committee.
Then came the 1976 Winter Formal.
Helen’s mother allowed her to wear a family bracelet for the first time.
The same bracelet now lying in Michael’s hand.
At the dance, Helen took it off because the clasp kept catching on her dress.
She placed it inside her small evening bag.
Later that night, it disappeared.
The empty bag was found beneath a chair.
June had been sitting nearby.
Worse…
another student claimed she saw June holding Helen’s bag earlier.
“Did June take it?” Michael asked.
Claire shook her head.
“Apparently not.”
But seventeen-year-old Helen believed she did.
She confronted June in front of several classmates.
June denied it.
Helen demanded she empty her purse.
No bracelet.
Helen still didn’t believe her.
Rumors spread through school.
Someone used the word thief.
Then someone else repeated it.
Within days, June stopped attending dance rehearsals.
She stopped eating lunch with Helen.
Two months later, June’s family moved to another city after her father changed jobs.
The friendship ended without reconciliation.
“And Grandma never found the bracelet?” Emma asked.
Claire looked toward the black jewelry box.
“Not then.”
Michael suddenly understood.
“She found it later.”
Claire nodded.
“Much later.”
“Where?”
Claire answered:
“Inside an old camera case.”
Michael went silent.
Helen had been the school photographer.
The bracelet had never left her belongings at all.