Pearls

Orange, green, red, yellow, ... white. Pearls mingled with the bright colored leaves strewn about the wet sidewalk. A young woman knelt to pick up the pieces of her broken necklace. Why was it always breaking? It reminded her of something else that was always breaking. What was it? Oh yes, now she remembers. Something that should never be broken, for when broken it brings more pain than anything else.
She put her hand into her coat pocket, and carefully tucked away the pearls as she picked them up. Her hands were cold and wet, but she continued her search for her treasure. On her hands and knees, her black umbrella upside down behind her, she was careful to search under each leaf until she'd found them all. Every pearl was precious, like a dear friend she held close to her heart.
Is that all of them? She counted them. Thirty-four. There should have been thirty-five, but she had been unable to find them all the first time it broke.
"You've missed one," came a voice from behind her.
She turned to look at the one who had spoken. With a smile he knelt down beside her, and held out his hands to her, his fingers closed in fists.
"Guess which one."
She looked at his face for a moment, and then a smile spread across her features. He was being playful as always. She pointed to his right hand.
"That one."
He opened it. It was empty. She smiled wider, and pointed to his left hand. He watched her face for a moment, and then opened it.
In his palm lay a ring, with a pearl at its center. She stared, unable to breathe. And then she had wrapped her arms around his neck, laughing and crying at the same time.
A passer-by may have thought it an odd sight, two people kneeling on the sidewalk laughing. But for them, there was not a happier moment in their lives.
She had found her last pearl.