Fiction: image and text copyrighted by Barry L. Lively

I’ve passed this egg in the window of the Second Use store every day for the last three months, as long as it’s been there.  I’ve not gone in to check on the price but I know it will be more than I can afford.  Maybe someday, if it’s still there.

A lot of people have walked by this dusty store window but no one has bought it yet.  It probably doesn’t mean much to them but my mother used to have one something like this and it always fascinated me.

The egg was a gift from my dad to my mom.  I wasn’t born yet so I didn’t see him give it to her.   I know it was precious to her because I often saw her smile at it as she was dusting the top of her dressing table or brushing her hair in front of the rather cloudy mirror behind the table.

We didn’t have much so this was extra special.

It was special to me, too.  From when I was very little I can remember staring at the egg, making up stories about it.  I was going to give it to the Queen of America, not knowing that we didn’t have a queen.

There were other items, a small vase, a statuette of Mozart and perhaps other things I can’t remember that I picked up and promptly dropped, breaking them.  I knew this so I was very careful when I touched the egg.

Mom let me touch it and I was even allowed to pick it up when she was there.  For the most part I didn’t even touch it when she wasn’t around.

It was heavier than it looked and the painted flowers were beautifully done.  It was smooth and cool to the touch.  I don’t know where the scent came from but it even smelled like one of Mom’s perfumes.

That egg was on her dressing table when I was little, and when I was in grade school and high school.  It was still there when I graduated from college and left home to get married.  In recent years it had been on her bedside stand in a dementia unit.  Often when I would visit, she would pick it up and smile.  I held it once in a while too and I smiled.

Mom died one morning at 3:00.  There was a little smile on her face and the egg was on the floor, unbroken.  I don’t know what happened to the egg.  The staff on the unit was very good about leaving things alone.  But someone took it, I guess. I hope it brings them  the happiness that it did Mom.

That egg in the window.  I think that would make a nice gift for my wife.  I’ll check on it.  I smiled.