The Pearls Scene Two

Toronto, Summer 1945

Sunlight bathes the little girl as she sits on the floor beside her mother's bed. While her mother sits at her built in vanity putting hair pins into her black upswept hair, the little girl is playing in her mother's sewing box. She asks about the paper envelopes with pictures of chintz covered chairs. "How can a chair be in an envelope?" she wonders. She picks up a tiny yellow plastic button and holds it up to the light streaming through the venetian blinds. Is this what shines in the sky at night? What are the fireworks that she saw, held in her mother's arms last night? Do they look like this? She watches the light shine on her mother's fur coat, spread out on the bed. On the dresser is a picture of her mother and father. Her mother looks almost Chinese, but the little girl does not know what that is. Her black hair is cropped short and close to her head. She is wearing a black dress and a silk collar with a pin set with pearls around her neck. Her father is wearing a good suit. His curly blonde hair neatly combed. The two look elegant and formal, self possed, as if knowing that this is the picture their children will remember them by. It is their wedding picture. It was taken in 1936, "before you were a twinkle in your father's eye!"