Living Heirloom

Our gentry neighborhood was a target for plunderers who were gathering anything that sparkles and shines. This group of wayward civilians terrorized city after city, bombing homes and lighting fire to everything in their path. Our subdivision had already been hit once before, but not destroyed like other neighborhoods in our city. We were able to live in our house, even though it sustained some damage to the roof, but it wouldn’t survive a second ambush.

My mother gave me one hour to gather what was left of my belongings before we voluntarily evacuated our home in search of a safer place to live. I spent most of my time in our study on the second floor looking for the dreamy, rhinestone-studded journal my grandmother sent me from Dubai. It shimmered brightly in any light, so I was puzzled when the search lasted more than fifteen minutes.

“Where is it?!” I screamed at the clouds peeking through the big hole in our roof. I frantically shuffled through over one hundred books and still hadn’t found my journal. This defeat made me sad all over again. Almost two years ago, my grandmother left for Dubai on a personal mission to gain more knowledge of the world of textiles — hoping to find inspiration for her next fabric collection. Six months ago, I received the radiant journal with a note saying she was forced to return to the States and would be home soon. That was the last I had heard from my grandmother.

My mother rushed into the library and dragged me toward the doorway. “Come on. We have to go.” She was frantic and panting like she had seen a ghost. I resisted. “I can’t leave without it.” “I’m sorry about your diary, but we have to go.“ "It’s not a diary, it’s a journal, and it just so happens to be the only thing I have left of Grandma.” “Don’t say that!” My mother refuted. She looked worried – her brow furrowed and eyes weary.

I reluctantly left the study, abandoning my search. The piles of books were overwhelmingly scattered about the corridor making it hard for us to walk without potentially falling on ceiling pieces and other debris. I could hear bombs that were too close for comfort and screams that left the hair on the back of my neck standing up. As we walked toward the stairs that led to the front door, I decided that living was more important than staying back to find my journal.

“You go first.” My mother pushed me forward as if she was sacrificing her chance to live. “Why can’t we just go together?” I pleaded. The worry on my mother’s face grew deeper. “I don’t think the stairs will hold our weight.” Water damage from the last few rains rendered the flight of stairs hazardous. “You’ll be okay. You’re a strong girl. Just don’t stop.” With my mother’s reassurance, I carefully progressed down the stairs, avoiding any weak spots. I made it to the last step, only for the stairs to cave in, but luckily, I escaped the wreckage. My mother was on the second floor headed toward the back of the house. “Keep going! I’ll meet you in the car!” she yelled.

My next move was to leave through the front of the house and run up the driveway toward our car. I turned the door knob and was met with a huge explosion which thrust me backward into the fallen staircase. When I opened my eyes, I saw my mother’s face. It took a few seconds for my vision to steady. “What happened?” It was so hard to speak. My ears were ringing and my body was aching. “Just scrapes and bruises. You’ll be fine.” There it was, again — that mother’s reassurance that I didn’t know I so desperately needed. Before the nuclear holocaust, I found myself attempting to become more independent of her. Now, she was literally my crutch and there was nothing and no one I wanted more than my mother at that moment — not my grandmother nor the journal she gifted me.

We took off running toward the car once we limped through what was left of the front door. “Don’t stop!” my mother screamed as we ran the final stretch to safety. It was hard not to look back at the house I knew as our home for seventeen years. Moving forward would mean letting go of everything I knew and starting from scratch; something I would have a hard time facing. Most importantly, leaving meant it would be nearly impossible to see my grandmother again.

At the top of our driveway I could see the unsightly destruction in our neighborhood. I grabbed the handle on the passenger side of the car and swung the door open, trying not to let the feeling of despair overwhelm me. My mother jumped in and slammed the door behind her; we both let out a sigh of relief.

She climbed into the driver’s seat, grabbed the steering wheel, and we set off to find a town that hadn’t been terrorize. Before we could clear our yard, my mother abruptly stopped the car. Our neighbors were scattered in pieces in the middle of the street directly in front of their mailbox. I looked at my mother who was frozen in her seat. “Just go around them.” I said softly, attempting to interrupt her paralysis. We continued down the street in silence.

At the end of our block, a bright, shimmering light caught my eye.

“Mom, stop the car.” I had already cracked the door open.

“We have to get out of here!”

“Just give me two minutes. I know that glimmer anywhere.”

I jumped out of the car and ran down the driveway toward the spot that shimmered, stopping at a small bush. My stomach dropped in disappointment, when I picked up something other than my journal. I begrudgingly retreated to the car. “It wasn’t what I thought it was,” I confessed as I entered the car. “Wait a minute.” My stomach dropped again in disbelief once I realized what I was holding. “I think… I think it’s Grandma’s necklace — the one she was wearing when she left for Dubai.” I opened the heart-shaped locket and saw an image of me on one side and an image of my mom on the other. “Grandma came back?” I managed to refrain from hitting my head on the dashboard as my mom quickly stopped the car. Something else caught my eye as I turned to question my mother’s actions. A yellow piece of shimmery fabric was swaying in the wind as if it was flagging me down. I ran to the dancing cloth and was thrust into a whole new world of despair. My grandmother was lying in a ditch. She was dressed in a beautiful, bright yellow, delicately beaded sari. “She almost made it to us!”

My mom joined me as I knelt down and cried on her chest. I fell into her arms, and we mourned in our neighbor’s yard. After the longest three minutes of our lives, we stood up, wiped our tears and prepared to continue our travels. Before we left my grandmother’s side, my mother knelt down and ripped a piece of cloth from the bottom of her mother’s robe.

“I guess you were right,” my mother confessed when we got to the car. “Your grandmother really was gone.” I cringed. I wish I had been wrong. My mother took the cloth from her mother’s robe and tied it around her neck. I teared up as she reached over to touch the heart-shaped locket that clung to my fingers. “Now, these are the only things we have left of grandma.” “No mom,” I realized, "we have each other.”