"Them's my mama's diamonds," she said, nodding for emphasis. "Bet you never seen nothing like that before, have you, Miss Julia Callahan Garrity?" "No ma'am," I said truthfully. "I never have, Miss Loudene." She dumped the jewelry on the battered Formica kitchen table. "Go ahead and look, girl," she insisted. "Real. Sure are." The kitchen was dark and airless. It was early October, and still hot in Atlanta, but Miss Loudene kept the windows locked tight, with yellowed shades pulled out against the sunlight and "thievin' neighbors." I went to the window and pulled up the shade. Miss Loudene glared but kept her seat I picked up a choker with a diamond and sapphire brooch shaped like a peacock's feather. It was a period piece, from the 1920s, probably, the kind of thing a flapper might have worn. There were earrings to match and a bracelet too. The jewelry bespoke the high life; an era of bathtub gin and ostrich feathers and sleek cars. How had such stuff ended up here in Atlanta, Georgia, in a weather-beaten mill village shack owned by 70-year-old Loudene Jenkins, who owned neither a car nor a telephone nor a washing machine?
