Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

“Sometimes luck is all you have, if you’re lucky. It travels with me because I have this lucky locket Mother gave me when I was a girl. She said the locket and chain are 18 carat gold. It isn’t that I don’t need the money, but if I sell it, my luck will leave, and I’ll be totally alone.”

She opens it and studies the picture inside. On the left is a tiny picture of her mother as a young bride, on the right a picture of Poppa Joe.

“Poppa Joe was my mother’s second husband. I have no idea what my real father looks like. He left when I was a baby. For all I know he’s dead.”

She sits on the curb in front of Delaney’s Pawn Shop, removes Poppa Joe’s picture and drops it to the sidewalk.

“I never understood why Momma married him. We were doing just fine on our own. She only wanted to see the good in him. She was blind to the bad. I was not.”

She closes the locket and enters the pawn shop.

The man at the counter examines her lucky piece. “I can’t give you much, lady.”

“It’s 18 carat gold, sir.”

“I don’t know who told you that. This is worth less than the toy in a Cracker Jack box.”

She takes the locket from him and puts it back on her neck.

“I think I’ll keep it. Thank you for your trouble,” she says and leaves the shop.

She continues on her journey.

“Sometimes luck is all you have, if you’re lucky. It travels with me because I have this lucky locket my mother gave me when I was a girl…”