A Memento of You

I left a note on the drawer, it was dry this time. It’s what happens when you steel your heart. I wondered if she held it, felt it; the coarseness of it, words with departure, the hollowness of it.

“Rebelliousness led your mother to her grave,” my grandmother fumed, “too young for anyone to bear. And here you are, harboring it!”

I walked away from her, too tired for another outburst, but she trailed me as if afraid the grip her words had on me would unlatch itself. I sighed as I watched her appear in the room I made my escape into.

“It’s just France. Why are you doing this?” I tried to plead with her. Our lives were nothing more than a little village in the mountains of Andorra, which bordered on the helm of France. I just wanted to see the country.

Her voice turned cold as she looked away. “Your mother had been there.”

I said quietly, “She caught the plague in Italy.” But she knew that. The air suddenly felt like death had crept in. I turned my back to her and started putting things in order, anything to distract me from the desolate feeling trying to cloak me, and the one thing I started to loathe standing across the room. I moved to close a drawer before my eyes caught sight of a box inside. I brought the box out and my fingers tickled with fallen dust as I blew across it.

“That thing…put it away.”  But I paid no heed to the voice behind me.

It was crimson, dark as the blood rubies my mother would furnish her neck with. The box gleamed softly in the sunlight splashed through the window; glinted at every turn like constellations in the skies. “It was a gift,” my mother would say, “crafted in Paris.” She would click the box open, revealing a little winged creature poised at the center. She’d turn a key at the side of the box and music would bloom from it as she placed it in my childish hands. The winged creature would twirl at the soft notes while my mother mumbled into my ear about the beauty of Paris. In her last days, I’d come by and sit by her bedside and turn the key and she’d whisper to me, with bleeding strength, the grandeur of places I had never been to. Now I wondered if, back then, she was trying to soothe me or herself. The box felt colder at the thought. I tossed it back in the drawer and closed it shut.

    And so I left for France, with a little journal in my hand; adventures should live forever. And, for once, I left behind a letter I didn’t have to wipe tears off.  I dreamed of The Paris Opera, the Medici Fountain, and Polyphemus, the Gardens of Versailles. I wanted to experience the immortality of art. To live it. And so I did. But moments like this can be short-lived. I received word of home.

The sunset veiled the heart of France in copper gold. Spring flowers seemed on fire and fresh ink glinted in dusk lights as pen paused over paper. Who am I writing to? I closed my eyes and rubbed my throbbing head. “No one survived it, miss…and the whole village had been burned down along with every corpse.”

    I packed my belongings and left for Andorra. I arrived home only to find a blackened field where my village used to be. There were a few people here, covered in dark masks and cloaks, sifting through ruins with long sticks. I grimaced. Plague doctors. I walked up to where my home was but what was I expecting to find? Charred remains of her? There was nothing here but soot and burnt wood. I looked up as I heard footsteps approach me. It was one of the doctors.

“Was this your home?” he asked, his voice distorted by the plague mask.

“ Yes, sir…right here.” My voice was coarse like I’d swallowed the ash that flattened under my feet. The doctor removed his mask, revealing somber grey eyes that seemed lost in thought.

“Did you come from France?” he asked. How does he…and suddenly it struck me. I moved towards him. “You knew my grandmother? You treated her?”

“Yes, yes I did.” His face lined sorrowfully. “How did you know of the plague?”

I blinked tears away as I tried to gather myself. “I overheard it at an inn and asked about it.” I looked around at what was now a wasteland. “So it’s true”, I whispered.

He regarded me with concern and said, “You have no place to stay, do you? Come dear, my home is not too far from here.” I was taken aback by his hospitality but accepted his offer.

“Thank you, sir.”

His cabin was warmly lit by its sizzling fireplace. I sighed in my seat as I stretched my thawing fingers.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” the doctor said as he sat across from me. “It took everyone. Even a few doctors.” He observed me. “I’m sorry. She was your only kin, yes? You must have loved her well.”

“ What would you know?” I looked away. “I left her.”

“I doubt she hated you for leaving.”

I blinked and shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“Your grandmother had lived in France. Italy, too. I understand she never told you.”

Frowning, I said, “I…never knew.”

“On her deathbed, she said many things. At times she thought I was you. She talked of your grandfather, how she met him in Italy but watched as he died of bubonic plague. She went back to France with their child, your mother, and that’s where your parents met. Your father…tuberculosis took him before you were born.”

A wave of nausea hit me and I stared at him, bewildered.  I closed my eyes as my vision started to blur. “I…no one told me… not even my mo…” I choked on the last word.

“I’m truly sorry. Finding out this way…” He got up from his seat and knelt in front of me. “You need rest,” he said as he touched my burning forehead. He stood up and gestured for me to do the same then he stopped as a shadow of recollection crossed his face. “How could I forget? Wait here.”

I watched him walk out of the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I sniffed and rubbed my aching eyes and head. I do need rest. Shortly, he returned with a brown wooden box.

“What is in it?” I asked.

“I do not know.” He said, handing it to me. “Your grandmother, in one of her lucid moments, asked me to give it to you…if ever you returned.”

I held the box close to me. “Thank you.” The doctor led me to a spare room where I could sleep for the night. Before leaving, he turned to me and said, “Another thing, she said it was a gift to her from your grandfather and she passed it down to your mother.”

I smiled a little. “An heirloom then.”

“Perhaps.”

I’m left alone in a little room with a bed by the window where you can see the inked sky. I let out a breath as I let myself fall on the mattress, the sheets were soft and warm to the touch. I sat up, placed the box on my lap, and unlocked it. I stiffened as I stared at the content inside. My eyes burned painfully, I winced it close. “Oh, grandma…” I crumbled completely. I brought the content out of the brown box and pressed it close to my chest as I cried uncontrollably. Warm tears streamed down my face, into my mouth. I could taste it on my tongue. I clutched the beautiful red piece so tightly as if afraid it may disappear. “Oh Mother,” I whispered shakily as I pressed the music box to my lips, “I miss you…so much, it hurts.”

It was wet now from my tears and I laughed as I tried to wipe it dry. “Grandma, so it was yours all along?” I caressed the impressively crafted piece like it was the only thing to adore in the world. I clicked it open and there was the little fairy, a pretty thing. I touched the key and paused for a moment, I hadn’t played it since my mother’s passing; I wished the box to die with her but here it was, gleaming scarlet. I thought of my grandmother when the box was gifted to her. She must have been beautiful. I turned the key and lay on my side while I placed the music box close to me. Sounds of a Tinkerbell strung the air and the fairy came alive.  I laughed faintly as a single tear slipped across my face.

“After all this time, it still works…”