The chain, which had been a separate purchase from the locket itself, was another strike on her already very tight budget. Her monthly widow’s pension and social security check barely covered the household expenses, such as they were. She lived quite modestly in a tiny house that she and her husband had purchased over fifty years before. They had struggled over the next thirty years to keep up with the monthly mortgage payments, worrying each month as the next due date rapidly approached, but somehow they had managed to squeeze each payment out just in time, and eventually, they had owned the property free and clear. The neighborhood had changed quite a lot over those years. When they had first signed the mortgage, their neighbors had been young couples not unlike themselves. Twenty-something’s buying their first homes, places that would inevitably be a stop along the way until their careers took off and they could afford something better; eventually relocating to the bi-level homes in the new neighborhood being constructed on the other side of town.
