The girl had only one possession that she truly coveted. She kept it hidden under her side of the mattress to hide it from her dreadful sister who occupied the other side of the bed. A sister, who, had she been aware of its significance to the girl, would have certainly done something frightful to deny the girl of her treasure. A sister who regularly told the girl that she would grow up to be a spinster because the girl had peasant feet, and what man would want a wife with peasant feet? A sister with long, beautiful, piano playing fingers. The girl had wished more than once that it was her sister with the angry red, blistered hands of a violinist - and not herself. It was because of her sister and her beautiful piano hands that the girl was made to scrub the pots and tend to Milenka, the cow.
Her cherished treasure was a small enameled jewelry box her mother had given her. Shiny white and perfectly round, it was the size of a piece of lye soap half gone. Her poor mother, God bless her soul, had given it to the girl before she died when the girl was 11. The box was quite ordinary. But what the jewelry box had in it was the most interesting, mysterious possession any girl could ever hope to have. For all intents and purposes, it was just an earring. But the girl knew, this was no ordinary earring. An irregular pressed gold coin, about the size of a medium violin blister, dangling from a gold hook. It was the only thing that made her different than her sister. It was what they had used to mark her.
It was the girl who had been showered with attention by the Grey Nuns every time the girl set foot in church. It was the girl who had been told that she was heaven sent, a gift from God, a miracle.
Both the girl and her elder sister had been adopted, but it was the girl who had been abandoned on the front steps of the Grey Nun's Hospital 3 days before Christmas, 1918. The young nun who had found the girl by almost stumbling over her wholeheartedly believed that God himself had prompted her to use the front entrance that fateful morning. When the child was found in the dead of winter, she was naked but had been wrapped in cloth and then in paper.
A miracle. Heaven sent. A gift from God.
The only clue as to where she had come from was the earring. Crudely pierced through her right earlobe, it left a deep, yawning scar that would remain with her for the rest of her long life.
As appalling as her sister had always been to her, the girl was genuinely wounded by her sister’s reaction when she learned the girl had been asked to perform at Darke Hall with the Regina Orchestra in the spring of 1933. She screamed. She shouted. She stomped her dainty little feet.
Did they not know she was little more than a peasant? A fiddle playing peasant, yes. But a peasant, nonetheless! A girl whose very own parents had thrown her away like rubbish?
But not even the tantrum her sister threw could dampen the enthusiasm of the girl. To be invited at the age of 15 to play with the orchestra was an honor beyond measure. Claiming the violin made her head ache, the girl practiced out of earshot from her sister in the cowshed, in front of an indifferent bovine audience.
The day of the performance arrived. The girl was waiting on the front step, violin case in her lap, waiting for her father to finish dressing so he could walk with her to the theatre.
Juggling school, violin lessons, chores, and staying clear of the railings of her sister, she had had little time to think about her mother’s death 4 years earlier. But just before embarking on the greatest accomplishment of her life, she allowed herself to wonder if her mother would be proud, watching from heaven.
The next several hours were a blur. From the time her father kissed her on the cheek, and left her at the stage door to take his seat, to when the audience exploded in applause for her performance, the hours felt like seconds. She hardly noticed when an unfamiliar woman had handed her a bunch of spring tulips in appreciation after the concert. She was overwhelmed with emotion at the reception that greeted her after her first performance.
As the two of them walked home, the girl carrying her violin in both arms, the father carrying the tulips, her father spoke the sweetest words she had ever heard. He said that perhaps from now on, the girl could practice her violin in the cowshed while her sister milked the cow. At home that evening and alone in the house, the girl laid in bed and reached under the mattress.
She found her jewelry box and slowly unwrapped what was inside. In the dark, she fingered the familiar shape of the earring and tears stung her eyes when she thought of how proud her mother would have been. But rather than feel sorry for herself, she was comforted with the thought of her mother watching her, from a luxury box in heaven.
The girl suddenly remembered that in all of her excitement, she had forgotten the tulips on the counter in the kitchen.
She hastily rewrapped the earring, placed it inside the box and returned it to its customary hiding place. In her bare feet, which, she thought, didn’t exactly look like peasants feet tonight, she sashayed to the kitchen like she was dancing on air.
Carefully taking the tulips from the paper, she placed them in a mason jar and arranged them with her worn fingers. She was separating two stems that had tangled together, and didn’t notice the small folded envelope when it fell to the floor.
Stepping back to admire her bouquet, she looked down to find a tiny envelope caught under her foot. In her nightgown, barefoot in the kitchen, she slowly leaned over to retrieve it.
Curiously, she felt the envelope, and was surprised to feel something hard inside. A gift, she thought! Someone has given me a gift! She quickly tore the envelope open, but what she found inside made her head spin and knees buckle. She slid down the wall.
For as much as the girl missed her mother, and had wished she had been alive to have seen her play with the orchestra – she realized that her mother had been there.
Just not the mother she knew.
What she held in her hand was painfully familiar. An earring, an irregular pressed gold coin, about the size of a medium violin blister, dangling from a gold hook.
