The Charm Bracelet(86)

There are sounds of summer I now know will stay with me forever, no matter where I live or what I do, sounds that I will hear as I take my last breath. This summer orchestra will always remain in my ears: Bullfrogs moaning, cicadas chirping, hummingbirds zipping, fish jumping, dragonflies fluttering like violins, the mournful call of loons, the excited yells of children, and boat engines on the water.

But, mostly, I will forever hear the jangling of my mother’s charm bracelet.

It is getting very dark now, and I stumble on the edge of a steppingstone. I was wrong to have told Lauren to forego the flashlight.

My mother grabs my hand to steady me and our wrists collide, setting our charm bracelets jangling. Lauren giggles, and I can hear her grab her grandmother’s other hand.

“You’re wearing your bracelet again,” my mom says, her voice lifting.

My mother’s touch fills me not only with love but also with strength. It centers me. I now know that I have been blessed with the greatest gifts any woman could ever have. It just took a great teacher to show me.

My mother’s charms, I now know, aren’t just charms. They are pieces of her, hard won through love, loss, and life.

I take my fingers and begin to feel for her charms, trying to guess each one by touch rather than sight, wondering if her lessons have stuck.

“Your sewing machine!” I say.

“To a life bound by family,” my mom replies.

“Your kite!” I say.

“To a life filled with high-flying fun!”

“Hmmm,” I start, feeling the charm. “Oh! A puzzle piece.”

“To a life filled with friends who complete you!”

My fingers continue to move, rifling through her many charms until I no longer simply feel their silhouettes, I can actually feel their power vibrate.

“An ice cream cone, a mustard seed, and a loon!”

“To a life filled with a passion for what you do, to a life filled with faith, and to a life filled with a love that always calls you home!”

My mother slows and sighs. “You came home.”

“I never really left,” I say.

We take a seat at the end of the dock and dangle our feet in the water, the fireworks lighting up Lost Land Lake.

“Happy birthday, Mom! All those fireworks are for you! The world is celebrating your uniqueness!”

My mother squeezes my hand tightly. She knows that I have remembered her stories.

I pull a little box out of my hoodie pocket and my mother yelps in surprise, reaching out her hands for her present, just like a kid.

“No,” Lauren says, laughing. “You have to recite the poem first, Grandma.”

“I’m way too old for this.”

“You will never be too old for this,” I say. “Let’s do it together!”

This charm

Is to let you know

That every step along the way,

I have loved you so.

So each time you open up,

A little box from me

Remember that it really all

Began with You and Me.

“That’s right,” I say. “Now, here you go.”

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.