Slice of kindness at Italian deli in Bradenton

It was the weekend and Tara's Marsha Wright decided to buy a lottery ticket.

She opened her purse to get some money, and discovered her wallet was gone.

At 76, Wright admitted her memory isn't as good as it used to be. She tried to think back to where she might have left her wallet. She really didn't know.

"I thought it would show up," she said. "But after a few more days, I thought it really was gone. I had given up."

Wright, who lives in Ottawa, Canada half the year, began the process of getting a new Canadian driver's license.

Meanwhile, Brenda Edens, the co-owner of Petrosino's Italian deli and market, was doing her own search.

On Jan. 15, Edens had found a big, red Michael Kors wallet sitting on one of Petrosino's front dining tables. She thought someone would come back shortly to claim the wallet, but no one did.

So Edens, who took the wallet home for safekeeping, opened it to find some identification. She also noticed a pocket in the wallet that contained five rings. Edens knew they were expensive.

The driver's license was from Canada, so Edens knew it was going to take some work. She started looking through business cards. She started calling numbers, both here and in Canada.

One was a Braden River library card. Edens explained the situation and a library employee told her they didn't have a phone number, but they did have an email address for Wright.

Edens thought that might work but she continued searching anyway.

She talked to Edens' seamstress in Canada who knew her but didn't have a phone number. She then found a nail salon card from Bradenton and she visited that business. Again, they knew Edens as a customer, but they didn't have a phone number.

"I was going all the way with this," Edens said. "I was not going to stop."

About five days after Wright had lost her wallet, she opened an email from the Braden River Library.

"I was frozen," Wright said. "I couldn't believe it."

She drove to Petrosino's to meet with Edens. She was sure of one thing.

"I thought the rings would be gone," she said.

When Wright walked into Petrosino's, Edens could see the happiness in her eyes. Wright explained to Edens that she had experienced a lot of tragedy in her life, but this was a wonderful moment. The five rings in the wallet were worth more than $1,500.

"I wanted to hug her," Edens said.

Wright actually had thought of Petrosino's as a place where she might have lost her wallet and came back to the Italian deli to check, but it was early in the morning and they hadn't opened yet. She never returned to check.

As far as her effort to find Wright, Edens said it was simple to explain.

"If it was me, I would have been devastated to lose those precious diamond rings," he said. "I wanted to get them back to her."

The day Wright lost her wallet, she said it was the first time she had eaten at Petrosino's. She was sitting at the front table and had taken her wallet out of her purse, and she was a bit confused as to whether she could pay at her table or if she needed to go to the front register. She took money out of her wallet and sat it on the table, then walked to the register to pay, before leaving.

Edens, who owns Petrosino's with her fiance, Kirk Anthony Henry, said at one point she thought something might have happened to Wright. But when she called after the email from the library, it was "Yes! We found her."

Wright, who said she will forever be a Petrosino's customer, was asked why it took three or four days to find her wallet was missing.

"I'm Canadian," she said with a laugh. "Our dollar is in the toilet. I stay at home a lot."