He held out a silver gift box dressed with an antique, ornamental white silk ribbon and slid it across the wood coffee table toward her. The box seemed to merge eras. At first, it held the glint of the kind of old-fashioned box you might see in old movies, in that scene when a man gives a woman an orchid corsage and begins to sing. A secret box stuffed with love letters, or a stolen cache of jewelry that might accidentally fall from the dusty top shelf in a shop full of curios.

Sarah slipped the silky ribbon off, pulling it over the entire box without untying it. On the lid was a faint, scratchy pattern in faded black blotchy ink. A delicate shape. The jeweler that gave it to Mark could have been pulling a sly act of tongue-in-cheek whimsy when he said he had the “perfect gift box for ya, on me,” but in truth he was finally ridding his heavy heart from the decades of unbearable gloomy love affairs the box hid for him.