Vienna was looking at the drawer of the dusty table when the dancing rays glimmered the surface. She looked out of the window, that was placed just above the table, taking in the sun, and looking down at the bloomed lilies and carnations which had been recently planted in their garden. They seem to be smiling at her. She didnt care to smile back. She was getting tired of being dragged to the court every other day because of her parents' separation. She had come to dislike both her parents, especially her mother for not telling her the truth about the reason for the separation. She refused to stay with either of them and instead found solace in her old granny's house.She was cleaning the attic to pass time when she stumbled upon the beautiful antique lamps, potraits of ancestors, paintings on cavases, sheet music and a black wooden table in the room.
Her attention was brought to that table and she looked at it, wondering how long it had been there. She gave the room a wry look shifting her gaze back to the table. She suddenly noticed a heart shape carved on the wood in an extreme corner. She saw the initial there I and H. She smiled at the innocent love that the two people had shared, and felt happy being a part of their secret. She opened the drawer and found it dusty, and decided to clean it first. After the necessary cleaning she opened it again and saw that there was a photograph of a beautiful couple. The man lean, sharp featured and the girl innocent but stern. He resembled like someone she knew, but she couldn't remember who. Below the photograph was a letter, half torn and half worn out. She removed it and read...
"…..maybe someday she will realize the worth. But until then we can only look forward to a new dawn
that might change our misfortune. I wanted Maria to come visit me this summer, if only you could make some arr...”
The letter ended there. She noticed that the handwriting was neat and curved unlike hers. She dug in deep and found another paper. It looked like an essay. Well next to it was a locket. An emerald one. She held it between her fingers and smiled.
The paper read..
“Good morning one and all. When I was walking back from school yesterday I thought my grandpa was standing against the trees waiting for me, but as I drew closer and closer to the tree I saw that there was no one but me alone. I came home and went to my room and saw a letter kept on my table. I opened it and saw my grandpa's handwriting there. He talked about things that made me cry, but he told me to be strong and walk ahead of time. I didn't quite get it. My mother told me that today at his funeral I would have to tell you all about his time with me. I was his favorite granddaughter or so he told. I called him grandpa though he always wanted me to call him Henry. It just sounded foolish and I told him that.
So my story with grandpa starts from the day he came to visit us. I think it was the Christmas holidays. He was wearing a brown suit that day and as my mother introduced me to him, he said "so you are the beautiful princess everyone keeps talking about, I am delighted to finally meet you" he extended a hand at me and I vigorously shook it, they were so hard. That was our first meeting and I thought he was like my friend Anna's grandpa, who always grumbled and shouted at her. Instead, I started liking him when proved he me wrong the next day. I went out with my younger brother to make a snow man. He came out and helped us both to complete the snow man with a scarf. He was so funny. He said that during the night the snow man would disappear and if he did not then whatever we wished in the night would come true. I wished for him to stay. And it did come true.
When my school opened after the break, I didn't quite want to attend it. I loved spending time with grandpa and his stories. I had many bitter fights with my younger brother and I remember him telling me, "always love your younger brother. He loves you too" , but I fought back retorting that he never said it. I remember sitting in the backyard during nights, and him telling me about grandma and how they met. He told me "I met your grandma when she was fifteen and we both fell in love" and I often asked him to repeat that story again and again. about how the war was just over and he had come back to their hometown and that one day he was walking back home when he met a girl who had forgotten her way. "One look at her and I knew she was mine" he used to say. He told me she was just like a fairy and I imagined her with colorful wings and long shiny hair. I asked him where she was and he used to tell me somewhere in the sky. I never believed that!
When I was 10 we attended my friend's elder sister's marriage. He sat beside me and told me how the bride and groom take vows and how they promise each other and then exchange rings. When they kissed and everyone wished them we left back for our house. After I came home I put on my favorite white dress and went down to my grandpa's room. I asked him if he could marry me and he had smiled at me and said would not that hurt your grandmother?” and I replied how "she would never know. We will keep it as a secret." And that was the day he put me on his armchair and told me a long story about a prince and a princess who fall in love and grow old together. He had said "if you marry me, how will you meet your prince? He will accuse me of taking you away" with satisfaction that I didn't quite understand I drifted off to my wonderland.
It was this winter when he first told me that he was going to die soon. I asked him what death meant and he said "it means I am going away so that I meet your grandmother and so that we both can watch over you from the sky" and he had smiled but I stayed there confused. Christmas came and it was fun time again, but no one saw how hard it was for grandpa to walk with the ladder, how hard it was for him to keep his eyes open. when I used to sneak out of my room in the night to see him I used to go unto him and wake him up and when he used to look at me I used to ask "you are not leaving me yet are you?" and he used to smile and say "no I am not". This Christmas it didn't snow much. So I made a small snow man and asked him for my grandpa to stay with me forever " I stayed awake all night and watched if anything happened to the snow man and in the morning it was still there. I was happy, that like all the other Christmas wishes this would come true too.
Last week when I started realizing that he didn't talk much, I cried and cried for him to talk to me, but mother always pulled me from his room outside. I kept telling her that he is not going anywhere because I had wished for him to stay and that my wish would certainly come true. She hugged me tight and kissed me on the cheek and told me to say my prayers and go to sleep.
That night I sneaked out again and went into grandpa's room. His eyes were open and I was beyond happy. I went unto him and asked "why don't you talk to me anymore?" and he murmured something. I looked at him angrily that he didn't reply, and then I softly asked him "are you going away because I think YOU are my prince?" and he looked at me. I looked down and tears were in my eyes too. I softly told him “I will not ask you to be my prince I know you already are grandmother's prince... but please don't go, I hate everyone here. I hate the way mother never takes me out to her parties. I hate the way father gives Ryan two chocolates and me only one. I hate that big aunt who says bad things about you. I hate all of them. But I love you, and I love you the most. but I know you love grandmother the most " after I realized that he wasnt listening, I kissed his cheek and said "I know you want me to be strong and want me to be the princess you always called me but how am I supposed to know what is wrong if you are not here? How will I know that the ice-cream is not soft enough? How will I know why my friends laugh at me? Who will tell me to be nicer to Ryan? Who will ask me to sing during the night? Who will tell me all the beautiful stories about prince and princess? Who will wipe my tears when mother shouts at me? “I looked at him and his eyes were closed. He had fallen asleep. I sat on his big chair in front of the table and kept my head on it, I got up and saw a green stone in a chain, I picked it up got down from the chair and silently put it around his neck. I kissed him again on his cheek and said "I know you won’t leave me."
The next day I was sleeping in my room when my mother hurriedly pulled me out of the bed and took me downstairs. When I reached grandpa's room he was laying the same way but there was something different, different about the way he looked, and the way he was breathing. I went close up to him and asked "grandpa are you leaving me?" he smiled. I didn't know if he was going to stay with me, that uncertainty made me cry. And it also made me cry because I had to suddenly grow up. Suddenly be a girl I didn't want to be. I would miss his smile before going off to bed, I would miss his laughter that never failed to cheer me up, I would miss his songs that he always hummed, I would miss his snow man, his dreamy eyes when he told me about grandmother, his tears when he held me and said I love you so many times.. I would miss all of it but I didn't want to accept it.
Every time I saw grandpa going to uncle's place I knew he would come back, I knew he would return and get me presents and sweets, so I knew not to feel sad, but I still cried. But this time I didn't know how far he had gone. I was afraid that grandpa would go back to grandmother and would choose to stay with her. But yesterday when I read the letter he had written I felt different. He wrote "you know sweetheart, you were just like your grandmother, ever caring and ever loving. I wish you would have met her but then again I am glad you didn't, because then I would have never been able to share you with her. You were as precious to me. I wanted to tell you so many things but then again you were filled with your beautiful dreams that I knew I would never witness. How I wish I could have been able to stay more but then your grandmother kept calling me. And I know you are so understanding, sometimes I felt you were my grandmother and me your grandson. Funny is it not, my love? I will miss you, and never forget I’m always up there watching over you." He ended it there taking away the last bit of shine from his eyes and the last bit of hope from mine. all this time when I tried to imagine him leaving me, tears gushed their way out of my eyes, but after reading I knew that this one time my grandpa did not really leave me. He would always remain with me. In my heart, in my music, in my speech, in my tears and smiles… I knew he would always remain with me.. IN ME.. forever"
She was crying at the end as she saw just a simple I written there. She glimpsed back at the small heart made on the table 'I and H' She wondered what the "I" stood for. She tried to swallow whatever was blocking her from sucking the air. And she looked at the paper again.
An old woman came up from behind her and put her hand on the girl's shoulder and asked "so you read it?"
"Who is this girl granny? God how old was she when she wrote this... it’s so... so... “She looked outside the window and suddenly the sun was no more smiling but sympathizing with her.
"So... beautiful?" the old woman asked.
"Yes... who was she?" she asked with that desperate note in her voice.
“Oh that young girl was your mother sweetheart. Henry was my father and Ivy's Grandfather. She was 14 when she wrote that" she smiled simply looking at her.
She smiled back. Suddenly everything seemed clear, she knew why her mother had told her to come to this room, and she had forced herself not to. After her mother had moved away from the house she had grown to resent her mother's actions. She had despised her thoughts and her music. But this afternoon she discovered a different side to 'her' mother and in turn herself. The ‘I’ and ‘H’ belonged to her mother and hr great grandfather. They were not the only lovers Vienna thought, but I am a part of their love too. Vienna held the locket in her fingers feeling its shape. She then looked up with a heavy heart. Her great grandfather had not given only her mother hope but also her.
She said the name aloud Ivy William Wreathrow, her mother.
Hope, yes the most beautiful feeling, lifted her upward to someplace she just kept dreaming about. Today she was there. Happy and content. She understood that love cannot be understood and that no matter how far you want to run away, it finds you in one form or the other.
Her attention was brought to that table and she looked at it, wondering how long it had been there. She gave the room a wry look shifting her gaze back to the table. She suddenly noticed a heart shape carved on the wood in an extreme corner. She saw the initial there I and H. She smiled at the innocent love that the two people had shared, and felt happy being a part of their secret. She opened the drawer and found it dusty, and decided to clean it first. After the necessary cleaning she opened it again and saw that there was a photograph of a beautiful couple. The man lean, sharp featured and the girl innocent but stern. He resembled like someone she knew, but she couldn't remember who. Below the photograph was a letter, half torn and half worn out. She removed it and read...
"…..maybe someday she will realize the worth. But until then we can only look forward to a new dawn
that might change our misfortune. I wanted Maria to come visit me this summer, if only you could make some arr...”
The letter ended there. She noticed that the handwriting was neat and curved unlike hers. She dug in deep and found another paper. It looked like an essay. Well next to it was a locket. An emerald one. She held it between her fingers and smiled.
The paper read..
“Good morning one and all. When I was walking back from school yesterday I thought my grandpa was standing against the trees waiting for me, but as I drew closer and closer to the tree I saw that there was no one but me alone. I came home and went to my room and saw a letter kept on my table. I opened it and saw my grandpa's handwriting there. He talked about things that made me cry, but he told me to be strong and walk ahead of time. I didn't quite get it. My mother told me that today at his funeral I would have to tell you all about his time with me. I was his favorite granddaughter or so he told. I called him grandpa though he always wanted me to call him Henry. It just sounded foolish and I told him that.
So my story with grandpa starts from the day he came to visit us. I think it was the Christmas holidays. He was wearing a brown suit that day and as my mother introduced me to him, he said "so you are the beautiful princess everyone keeps talking about, I am delighted to finally meet you" he extended a hand at me and I vigorously shook it, they were so hard. That was our first meeting and I thought he was like my friend Anna's grandpa, who always grumbled and shouted at her. Instead, I started liking him when proved he me wrong the next day. I went out with my younger brother to make a snow man. He came out and helped us both to complete the snow man with a scarf. He was so funny. He said that during the night the snow man would disappear and if he did not then whatever we wished in the night would come true. I wished for him to stay. And it did come true.
When my school opened after the break, I didn't quite want to attend it. I loved spending time with grandpa and his stories. I had many bitter fights with my younger brother and I remember him telling me, "always love your younger brother. He loves you too" , but I fought back retorting that he never said it. I remember sitting in the backyard during nights, and him telling me about grandma and how they met. He told me "I met your grandma when she was fifteen and we both fell in love" and I often asked him to repeat that story again and again. about how the war was just over and he had come back to their hometown and that one day he was walking back home when he met a girl who had forgotten her way. "One look at her and I knew she was mine" he used to say. He told me she was just like a fairy and I imagined her with colorful wings and long shiny hair. I asked him where she was and he used to tell me somewhere in the sky. I never believed that!
When I was 10 we attended my friend's elder sister's marriage. He sat beside me and told me how the bride and groom take vows and how they promise each other and then exchange rings. When they kissed and everyone wished them we left back for our house. After I came home I put on my favorite white dress and went down to my grandpa's room. I asked him if he could marry me and he had smiled at me and said would not that hurt your grandmother?” and I replied how "she would never know. We will keep it as a secret." And that was the day he put me on his armchair and told me a long story about a prince and a princess who fall in love and grow old together. He had said "if you marry me, how will you meet your prince? He will accuse me of taking you away" with satisfaction that I didn't quite understand I drifted off to my wonderland.
It was this winter when he first told me that he was going to die soon. I asked him what death meant and he said "it means I am going away so that I meet your grandmother and so that we both can watch over you from the sky" and he had smiled but I stayed there confused. Christmas came and it was fun time again, but no one saw how hard it was for grandpa to walk with the ladder, how hard it was for him to keep his eyes open. when I used to sneak out of my room in the night to see him I used to go unto him and wake him up and when he used to look at me I used to ask "you are not leaving me yet are you?" and he used to smile and say "no I am not". This Christmas it didn't snow much. So I made a small snow man and asked him for my grandpa to stay with me forever " I stayed awake all night and watched if anything happened to the snow man and in the morning it was still there. I was happy, that like all the other Christmas wishes this would come true too.
Last week when I started realizing that he didn't talk much, I cried and cried for him to talk to me, but mother always pulled me from his room outside. I kept telling her that he is not going anywhere because I had wished for him to stay and that my wish would certainly come true. She hugged me tight and kissed me on the cheek and told me to say my prayers and go to sleep.
That night I sneaked out again and went into grandpa's room. His eyes were open and I was beyond happy. I went unto him and asked "why don't you talk to me anymore?" and he murmured something. I looked at him angrily that he didn't reply, and then I softly asked him "are you going away because I think YOU are my prince?" and he looked at me. I looked down and tears were in my eyes too. I softly told him “I will not ask you to be my prince I know you already are grandmother's prince... but please don't go, I hate everyone here. I hate the way mother never takes me out to her parties. I hate the way father gives Ryan two chocolates and me only one. I hate that big aunt who says bad things about you. I hate all of them. But I love you, and I love you the most. but I know you love grandmother the most " after I realized that he wasnt listening, I kissed his cheek and said "I know you want me to be strong and want me to be the princess you always called me but how am I supposed to know what is wrong if you are not here? How will I know that the ice-cream is not soft enough? How will I know why my friends laugh at me? Who will tell me to be nicer to Ryan? Who will ask me to sing during the night? Who will tell me all the beautiful stories about prince and princess? Who will wipe my tears when mother shouts at me? “I looked at him and his eyes were closed. He had fallen asleep. I sat on his big chair in front of the table and kept my head on it, I got up and saw a green stone in a chain, I picked it up got down from the chair and silently put it around his neck. I kissed him again on his cheek and said "I know you won’t leave me."
The next day I was sleeping in my room when my mother hurriedly pulled me out of the bed and took me downstairs. When I reached grandpa's room he was laying the same way but there was something different, different about the way he looked, and the way he was breathing. I went close up to him and asked "grandpa are you leaving me?" he smiled. I didn't know if he was going to stay with me, that uncertainty made me cry. And it also made me cry because I had to suddenly grow up. Suddenly be a girl I didn't want to be. I would miss his smile before going off to bed, I would miss his laughter that never failed to cheer me up, I would miss his songs that he always hummed, I would miss his snow man, his dreamy eyes when he told me about grandmother, his tears when he held me and said I love you so many times.. I would miss all of it but I didn't want to accept it.
Every time I saw grandpa going to uncle's place I knew he would come back, I knew he would return and get me presents and sweets, so I knew not to feel sad, but I still cried. But this time I didn't know how far he had gone. I was afraid that grandpa would go back to grandmother and would choose to stay with her. But yesterday when I read the letter he had written I felt different. He wrote "you know sweetheart, you were just like your grandmother, ever caring and ever loving. I wish you would have met her but then again I am glad you didn't, because then I would have never been able to share you with her. You were as precious to me. I wanted to tell you so many things but then again you were filled with your beautiful dreams that I knew I would never witness. How I wish I could have been able to stay more but then your grandmother kept calling me. And I know you are so understanding, sometimes I felt you were my grandmother and me your grandson. Funny is it not, my love? I will miss you, and never forget I’m always up there watching over you." He ended it there taking away the last bit of shine from his eyes and the last bit of hope from mine. all this time when I tried to imagine him leaving me, tears gushed their way out of my eyes, but after reading I knew that this one time my grandpa did not really leave me. He would always remain with me. In my heart, in my music, in my speech, in my tears and smiles… I knew he would always remain with me.. IN ME.. forever"
She was crying at the end as she saw just a simple I written there. She glimpsed back at the small heart made on the table 'I and H' She wondered what the "I" stood for. She tried to swallow whatever was blocking her from sucking the air. And she looked at the paper again.
An old woman came up from behind her and put her hand on the girl's shoulder and asked "so you read it?"
"Who is this girl granny? God how old was she when she wrote this... it’s so... so... “She looked outside the window and suddenly the sun was no more smiling but sympathizing with her.
"So... beautiful?" the old woman asked.
"Yes... who was she?" she asked with that desperate note in her voice.
“Oh that young girl was your mother sweetheart. Henry was my father and Ivy's Grandfather. She was 14 when she wrote that" she smiled simply looking at her.
She smiled back. Suddenly everything seemed clear, she knew why her mother had told her to come to this room, and she had forced herself not to. After her mother had moved away from the house she had grown to resent her mother's actions. She had despised her thoughts and her music. But this afternoon she discovered a different side to 'her' mother and in turn herself. The ‘I’ and ‘H’ belonged to her mother and hr great grandfather. They were not the only lovers Vienna thought, but I am a part of their love too. Vienna held the locket in her fingers feeling its shape. She then looked up with a heavy heart. Her great grandfather had not given only her mother hope but also her.
She said the name aloud Ivy William Wreathrow, her mother.
Hope, yes the most beautiful feeling, lifted her upward to someplace she just kept dreaming about. Today she was there. Happy and content. She understood that love cannot be understood and that no matter how far you want to run away, it finds you in one form or the other.
