My Cardboard Balcony

All the beads were strung together to make a beautiful red and silver necklace, which Sylvain happily presented on Father's Day. She ignored her older brother Terry's derisive snort of laughter, but his words still bit deeply into the sweet six-year-old's ears. "It's jewelry," he scoffed. "Men don't wear jewelry." But her father did wear the necklace. He wore it every single day for a month until it broke.