The Collapse
I never dreamt of opening it. I’ve worn this heart for seventeen years, without troubling the secret shut inside it. “Open it alone,” mama said “and only when there’s absolutely no way out. You’ll know when it’s time.” The locket had belonged to my grandmother — your great-grandmother — and once would have held portraits of treasured loved ones ensconced in its tiny golden folds. Perhaps it still does. It was our last meeting, our last embrace before they took her. Mama clasped the chain around my neck and held me tight, whispering “Keep it on and keep fighting til the end. I’m always with you”. I wish that were true. I’ve yearned for mama’s calm wisdom every day of these seventeen years. Then I was separated from you, my darling, and I thought I would die of the heart ache. It’s amazing what the human heart can bear. The past eight years without you have been gruelling, torturous at times. The hope that you have survived, that we will find each other again, has kept me alive, more than anything, more than water … until now. Now I think — I know — it’s time. I’m finally going to find out what gives this little locket such surprising weight.