The Missing Link

         The solitary sheet of paper crinkled briskly beneath the weight of her hand as she moved down to the next line, the pen poised above as if waiting expectantly for her next thought to seep through, and yet a hushed moment passed before its tip hesitantly landed upon the sheet, scribbling, "To my great grand niece, Suzanne, I leave...." She paused again, her mind retreating to her untroubled youth, those years when a certain amount of resiliency wound through her very fiber and ruled her every action, a life that now seemed so far away, belonging to another. She sighed with a mournful smile and closed her eyes to reminisce.....
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         "Daddy!" The screen door crashed to a close after the furious young girl burst in, her golden strands flying behind her and her glistening blue eyes livid with rage, yet it quickly regained silence as it gave way to her running footsteps that echoed determinedly down the corridor. "The boys won't play with me! They said I was a girl, and girls don't know how to play. And look! Danny pushed me down and made my knee bleed." Tears streamed down her face at the mention of blood, causing him to bend down and examine it more closely.

         "It's just a scratch. Nothing to worry about," her father tried to console her. He often felt incapable during these moments when he would have given anything to have his wife be alive again. She was always so much better at handling these things. "Why don't you take a break and do something else? You can give it a try again when you feel ready," he urged her with an encouraging pat on the head. Not knowing what else to say or to do, he straightened back up and, clearing his throat, he strode irresolutely away.

         Her distraught eyes followed him searchingly for a few seconds, but then she spun around in resolve and dashed off to her bedroom, finding comfort in the form of Gemma, a porcelain doll given to her by her mother before she passed away. Gemma was a beauty to behold, a sympathetic friend with deep brown painted eyes and a dark mohair wig styled in ringlets around a face delicately painted in soft skin tones. Her attire consisted of white underwear and two petticoats, (one midnight blue and the other white), a boned corset and hand knit rayon thread stockings, and her dress was made of filmy white on white silk trimmed with blue bugle beads under the bodice. Her shoes were also made of the same silk fabric and had tiny bugle bead trim on the toes. Her overall appearance was as breathtaking as was her ability to sooth and to lend motherly advice. It was she who taught the girl that even those who may appear to be powerless could be, in fact, the strongest in the bunch. One needs only to hold on to them, to value them and to not let them fall to the wayside. The girl hugged the doll tightly to her chest as it whispered those encouraging words into her ear.
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         The sharpness of the bracelet's edges dug into her fingers as she twisted the intricate chain first in one direction and then in another, its golden hue flashing in the brilliant sunlight when they exited the crowded restaurant. "It's beautiful," she remarked upon the gift he had given her, a token of adoration from her lover on Valentine's Day. "I'm never going to remove it." She laughingly gazed up at him, the facetiousness of her tone belying the seriousness behind her words. Releasing it from her grasp, she raised herself up on her toes for a kiss when she felt a sudden pull on her wrist that rent the bracelet apart and sent a solitary link flying forsaken to the ground. Gasping in surprise, she spun around to witness a scraggly bearded man running off with the broken chain hanging in his grip, the mass of astonished onlookers giving way to the intrusion of his path without making any attempt to stop him. The one person she could rely upon, her beloved companion, urgently took off after the thief in an effort to capture him before he made his escape, a move that resulted in a locked struggle over the precious strands of gold until a deafening discharge filled the air that pierced straight through her chest as she watched him fall down to the earth. Screams pealed out around her and slowly faded while she sank deeper into despair, never to view the world in the same way again. From that moment on, she no longer reached out to mankind, deeming them to be crooked and untrustworthy. Never did she marry or bear children. She lived a life apart from society, having been spotted now and again in glimpses only when it was necessary, and she spent those years longing for that young man who gave true meaning to her life and a support she could find nowhere else. Without him, there was no connection, no reason to go on.
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         If only there was something she could do, she pondered as the words reemerged into the forefront of her vision, to make a difference. There must be one final act she could commit before it was too late, one last attempt to reach out to another. She lowered her eyes to the paper and reread what she had written, "To my great grand niece, Suzanne, I leave....", and then after another brief hesitation, she placed the tip of the pen on the paper and added with a few assured strokes, "....my porcelain doll, Gemma."