I lost one of a favorite pair of earrings last summer. I searched everywhere for it. Every placed I’d been that day at Day Job. My car. Every place I’d stepped or sat at home. I tossed the widowed earring into a container on my bureau. Periodically I would see it and think I should dispose of it, but I somehow managed not to.
The seasons changed. I wore my fall/spring coat when temperatures required it. I drove to work everyday. I had the car inspected. I made a road trip to a friend’s house in a nearby city for a writing day. I made another road trip to another nearby city with my husband to visit a museum of interest to us.
One chilly morning late this summer, I pulled on my jacket, hopped in my car, and drove to my parents to take them to an appointment. When we came out of the house to get into the car, I discovered the missing earring hanging through the fabric on the back of the driver’s seat. Facing the steering wheel. You know, where I’d sat nearly every day for a year. Yes, it had been a couple of months since I’d worn that coat, but I had worn it. Repeatedly. Through fall and spring.
Perhaps there’s a black hole or a time warp in my car. Regardless, the earrings are happily united, and I wear them with pleasure.