My mother tears open the tiny box, and there, sitting atop a little velvet throne, is a silver charm.
“What is it?” my mother asks, squinting in the darkness.
“It’s a book,” I say.
My mother pulls it from the box and studies it, rubbing her old hands over its delicate outline.
“What’s it mean, Arden?”
“It’s to a story that will never end,” I say.
I smile and lean into my mom. She is warm, safe, and smells of summer, a mixed bag of scents, from perfumed peonies to firewood from making s’mores.
“I put all of our initials on the back of the charm,” I say. “We are forever the authors of our very own book.”
There is silence as my mom adds the charm to her bracelet. Finally, I say, “And I’m writing again, Mom. Not only at Paparazzi but also the story of your charms. The story of us … all of us. I finally found my voice again.”
I can hear my mother cry softly.
“I’m so happy,” she finally says, before adding, very seriously, “Promise me something, girls.”
“Anything,” we reply in unison.
“Promise me you will always wear your charm bracelets,” she says. “That way, we’ll never be apart. That way, you’ll never forget.”
“We’ll never forget, Mom,” I say.
My mom looks out over the lake as fireworks illuminate the sky once again, and she puts her arms around our shoulders, drawing her girls even closer. As colorful fireworks explode overhead, she kisses our cheeks.
“I will always love you, Arden,” she says. “I will always love you, Lauren.”
“We love you, too.”
A breeze as soft as my mother’s kisses rushes across the water and over the lip of the dock to jangle our bracelets.
“You know, some people say they hear the voices of their family in this lake: In the call of the whippoorwill, the cry of the loon, the moan of the bullfrog,” my mom whispers. “But I hear my family’s voices in the jangling of our charms.”
The way she says this makes goose bumps cover my body.
I turn to look at my mom. In the distance, fireworks explode again, a strobe of light illuminating her aging face. I can see her rosy cheeks dotted with summer freckles, even under all that makeup. It is as if a million paparazzi have arrived to capture her image, so I will never forget how she looks at this very moment.
Beautiful. Happy, I think.
I look even closer, and I can still see tears streaming down her face.
“Are you okay, Mom?” I ask.
“Sixty-one years ago today,” she whispers over the echoing booms of the fireworks, “was my last birthday with my mom. But you two … you two have given me the greatest gift ever. You are my living history. My stories won’t die with me.”
My heart leaps into my throat, and I can feel myself begin to choke up, too.
I take a deep breath and force my tears to stop their rise.
For I am not sad. I am blessed.
I am the keeper of my mother’s memories.
And when I am her age, I hope to sit here with my daughter, and my grandchildren, as the fireworks explode.
I will sit patiently and wait for the wind to rattle my charm bracelet—which will be even heavier than my mom’s is now—and I will shut my eyes, and I will listen to the voices of my family.
Acknowledgments
I always preach to aspiring writers that they should write what calls to them, no matter what anyone else thinks, because that writing will truly become inspired work and thus inspire others. Moreover, that work will call to you—if not haunt you—until you finish it.
I also tell writers that the end goal of success or money is never the most important thing when you come from this place: Writing is the reward. You do it because, well, there is no other choice.
This is so true with The Charm Bracelet.
My grandmothers and their charm bracelets were the inspiration for this highly personal novel that honors and pays tribute not only to them (the book bears my grandmother’s name as a pseudonym) but also our elders, who we too often take for granted and whose incredible lives we too often overlook.
As I grew older, I—like most of us do—got caught up in things that seemed important but really weren’t. In my quietest moments, I could still hear in my mind the jangling of my mother’s and grandmothers’ bracelets, and that sound reminded me of what was truly important in life, that the smallest things are the greatest gifts.
I spent my summers with my grandparents, usually at an old log cabin in the Ozarks, always without a phone, a TV, a microwave. It was the time before cell phones, wireless, and laptops. We only had inner tubes, books, fishing poles, and one another. But I received the greatest gift of all those summers: I got to know my grandparents as people, beautiful, flawed, wonderful humans whose sacrifices and journeys helped make me who I am.