A year ago…
A pair of girlfriends who seem to have known one another for a very long time meet up somewhere and they exchange gift bags. One of these two girls, the taller one holds a bag filled with goodies, random things that were just thrown together. The other girl, a shorter girl, hands the taller one a small gift bag, a small palm sized one. The taller one has on a face of astonishment, immediately assuming it to be jewelry, not knowing, without a clue as to what the gift might be.
The taller one opens the box in which the bracelet lay, and gently does she remove it from the packaging. The length of the bracelet is tanned leather. It is a dark shade of iguana green, while the connecting segment of the bracelet is silver, seemingly rustic in appearance.
The small charm that hangs from that silver portion is a cross. It isn’t a plain cross, it reflects light so well. It’s not gleaming but it’s shiny. It is a crucifix that is wrapped in rope near where the intersection of the perpendicular is. The taller girl holds the bracelet up to the light and looks at the charm, and the charm alone. She remembers Christ. She also acknowledges the fact that the friend who gave it to her isn’t Christian, but knows that she herself is. She puts on that bracelet and feverishly thanks her friend…
Present day
A girl peers into her bag and reaches in. It’s a mess of a bag, but it’s filled with all of her daily used items. At the bottom of this bag she sees a short silver chain with slightly rusted /worn edges and reaches for it. What she pulls out is a bracelet. It has silver chained ends and a green leather body. It’s very soft leather; it looks like it never used to be refined in any special way. It wasn’t like the commonly sold charm bracelets at Tiffany and Co. This bracelet looks like something from a boutique or a special stand in Union Square. She puts the simple bracelet on, placing it on her left wrist as if she’s done it dozens of times before and knows exactly how to lay it there so that she can connect the two ends of it and stick the short segment of silver into the loop on the other end. It fits perfectly on her wrist when she gets it on. She knows she’ll never lose it, but it can at times be hidden in the abyss that is her handbag…
Seven years later…
The new mother sits down in the rocking chair with her new beautiful baby girl. Her bracelet charm on her wrist swings back and forth with every gentle rock. The baby quietly goes to sleep and the mother dozes off.
