"Family heirlooms are a trap, okay? But that doesn't mean I know how to escape. Way back in the late 70s, my dad bought my mom a simple necklace composed of tiny lapis lazuli beads. My dad was never the type to buy jewelry, and my mom was never the type to wear it, which ought to take pressure off. And yet I sense a storm is already brewing."
"I want the necklace, but have never said so out loud. This is partially because my family is still mulling over the concept of the singular they as a pronoun, and I don't know if they can handle me wearing jewelry without going through a major gender regression. My sister-in-law wore the necklace when she married my brother a few years ago-it was her "something borrowed," and how cute it's also blue! I think that was checkmate and I might not ever get over it."
Family heirlooms create complicated emotional stakes. The narrator's father bought the mother a simple lapis lazuli bead necklace in the late 1970s; the father rarely bought jewelry and the mother rarely wore it. The narrator wants the necklace but has never voiced that desire, fearing family discomfort over gender expression and the singular they. The sister-in-law wore the necklace as her 'something borrowed' at her wedding, which felt like a decisive loss. A separate tale centers on a one-of-a-kind hand-carved wooden hutch that sparks conflict between a new wife and her mother-in-law amid renovations, covert moving, rule-bending, and mixed winners and losers. Chelsea Devantez, an Emmy-nominated comedian and writer, contributes gossip about joke theft.
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