Chapter 78 The Name
Elena was two when she first noticed the locket.
She sat on Jane's lap, tugging at the silver chain with her small fingers. "What's this, Mommy?"
Jane opened it. Two tiny photos, faded at the edges. "That's my mother. And that's my other mother."
"Two mommies? How can you have two mommies?"
"Two. You have one mommy, but I have two. One who raised me and one who gave birth to me."
Elena touched the photos, tracing the faces. "Where are they?"
"My mother is at home in the yellow room. And my other mother lives far away, but she comes to visit."
"Can we visit her?"
Jane smiled, brushing Elena's hair back. "Someday. When you're a little older."
The idea stayed with her. Elena asked about the locket often. She wanted to know the whole story. Jane told her simply: a baby, a hard choice, a family who said yes.
"So you grew in someone else's tummy?"
"Yes."
"But you grew up here. In Grandma's house?"
"Right here. In the yellow room with the paper stars."
Elena ran to the yellow room and looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. "Can I sleep here sometimes?"
"When you're older. When you're big enough to reach the light switch by yourself."
Sarah came for Elena's third birthday. She brought a book about families, all kinds of families. Elena made her read it three times, pointing at the pictures.
"Why are you here?" Elena asked, tilting her head.
"Because I love your mommy. And because I wanted to see you blow out your candles."
"Are you her mommy? Like, her real mommy?"
Sarah looked at Jane across the table. "In a way. A different way. A way that took a long time to understand."
Elena accepted this. She was three. The world was full of mysteries, and this was just one more.
David built a swing for Elena in their backyard. Jane planted marigolds in a small patch near the fence. The dogwood in our garden was older now, its branches heavy with white blossoms each spring.
Sunday calls continued. Jane and Sarah talked about Elena, about work, about small things. Never too heavy. Never too long. Just enough.
One afternoon, Jane asked, "Do you regret giving me that locket?"
"No. It's the best thing I've ever given anyone. It connects us."
"More than giving me up?"
Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Giving you up was a gift to you. The locket was a gift to myself. Proof that you exist. That we exist. That love survives separation."
Elena started preschool. She made friends, learned to write her name in wobbly letters, came home with paint on her shirt and sand in her shoes.
Jane called me. "She's so much like I was at that age."
"Quiet? Observant? Asking all the questions?"
"Yes. All the questions. All the time."
I laughed. "That's a Blackwood trait. We come with questions."
"She's a Blackwood?"
"She's yours. That's what matters. The name is just a name."
The years passed. Elena grew tall, with dark hair and Jane's steady gray eyes. She learned about death when her great-grandmother Eleanor passed away. She asked where people go when they die.
"That's a grown-up question," Jane said.
"I've grown up. I'm seven. That's practically an adult."
"Almost grown. But not quite."
Elena thought about this, her forehead wrinkled. "Do people go to the stars? Like the ones in the yellow room?"
Jane looked at the locket on her chest. "Some do. The ones who are remembered."
Sarah came for Elena's eighth birthday. She brought a star-shaped cake with glittering sprinkles. Elena blew out the candles with one breath.
"I wish for another story," she said.
"You've heard all my stories. All of them."
"Tell me the one about the box. The wooden box with the letters."
Sarah looked at Jane. Jane nodded slowly.
Sitting on the porch of our house, under the old dogwood tree, Sarah told Elena about the letters. The shaky one she had written years ago. The one Jane had written back on cream paper. The drawings of stick figures holding hands.
"Can I see them?" Elena asked.
"Someday. When you're older."
"I'm older now."
"You're eight. That's not old enough."
Elena let it go. She was busy with school, with friends, with learning to ride her bike without training wheels. But she never forgot about the letters.
That summer, Jane brought her to our house. They sat in the yellow room. The stars still glowed faintly on the ceiling, though some had fallen and been re-taped.
"These are the stars your mommy put up when she was little," I said.
"She did? All by herself?"
"With a little help from a stepstool and a lot of patience."
Elena touched one, a silver star slightly faded. "Can I have one? To take home?"
I smiled. "Take anyone you want. There are plenty."
She chose carefully, then put the star in her pocket like a treasure.
That night, Jane called me. "Elena took a star."
"I know. I told her she could."
"She put it on her dresser. Right next to her bed."
"She's collecting light. Just like you did."
Jane was quiet for a moment. Then: "She asked about the letters again. The box."
"What did you say?"
"I said one day. When she's ready."
"Is she ready?"
"She's eight."
"She's you at eight."
Jane laughed softly. "Then she's ready."
The next Sunday, Jane sat with Elena and opened the wooden box. The yellow envelope, soft and creased. The cream paper is still crisp. The crayon drawings of a house with a red door.
Elena read the letters slowly, her lips moving, her brow furrowed.
"She was sad," Elena said.
"She was. Very sad."
"But she loved you. I can tell."
"Yes. Enough to let me go. That was the bravest thing she ever did."
Elena put the letters back and closed the lid. "I'm glad she let you go. Because now you're my mommy."
Jane hugged her tightly. "I'm glad too. Every single day."
Sarah called that night. Jane told her about Elena reading the letters.
"Was she upset?" Sarah asked.
"No. She understood. She said you were sad but you loved me."
"At eight years old."
"She's wise. Like her mother."
Sarah laughed. "That's definitely true."
The dogwood bloomed again. Elena was nine. She planted her own marigolds next to Jane's, pressing the seeds into the soft soil.
"Will you plant flowers with your daughter someday?" Elena asked.
"Yes. If I have one."
"Then she'll plant flowers with her daughter?"
"That's how it works. Mothers and daughters and marigolds."
Elena nodded. "Good. I like that."
The locket now holds three tiny photos. Sarah, young and scared. Jane, in her nursing scrubs, was smiling. Elena, missing a front tooth, is holding a star.
Jane wears it every day. She says it keeps her feet on the ground and her heart in the right place.
"Two mothers," Elena says, touching the locket.
"One heart," Jane replies.
The dogwood petals fall like blessings.
The white pipe hums its steady song.
The stars glow in the yellow room.
And the letters wait patiently for the next generation.