Anna's Story

Chapter Two

Anna begins walking in the direction of her gaze. She was still silent, walking through the crowd that separates like the Red Sea. As if wearing blinders, she sees nothing but the sight before her.

"Mein leibhaber, mein Zigeuner, my Steve!", she cries out. A life-size portrait of her husband stands before her, She has been a widow for over 50 years and has never stopped loving or missing him. He is her gypsy, the man she fell in love with all those long years ago.

Heidi, her eldest granddaughter, always interested in the man she never met, had the life-size photo of her grandfather made from an old wedding photograph for the party. There were also enlargements of other missing family members that have been long gone. Pictures of her parents, her brothers and their wives. Only one was missing and that was her sister, Mary, gone these past 100 years. She never met her older sister and there were no pictures of her to be found. As Anna stands there, her family begins to come, surrounding her. Her favorite great-granddaughter, Katrina, Heidi's youngest, is standing next to her, arm around her shoulder, asking, "Old Grandma, are you okay? You look like you have seen a ghost."

Anna's voice cracks as she replies, "Yes, child, I am. Just a bit of a shock and lost in my memories."

"Come, sit down and I'll get you a cup of tea. Relax and have fun, it's your day after all." said Katrina.

As Heidi wheeled in the cake, ablaze with 90 candles, Anna looked into Heidi's eyes. Heidi how pleased Oma was but also saw something else, a flicker, like a candle almost blown out in the wind. And as her family gathered around the cake and sang, Anna's thoughts moved back over her long life.

She grew up in what is known as the Valley on Exchange Street in Buffalo. The neighborhood was of Hun-Austrian immigrants. Her parents had moved back and forth from Austria to America several times before her Papa told her Mother to choose a country. With World War I beginning, America was were they would make their permanent home. When she was a young woman in her teens, a family from Czechoslovakia had moved into the neighborhood. With them, they brought a border, a young man of 17. To Anna, he was the most handsome man she ever laid eyes on and decided then and there she would marry a gypsy.

Anna went to a Catholic high school in her neighborhood with her best friend, Celeste. They changed their route to school in order to pass the Gypsy's house. Leaning toward Anna, Celeste whispers, "Ann, I don't understand why you have me take the long way to school, that new kid goes to work very early in the morning, he's been gone for hours!"

"Yes, I know Celeste, you tell me that every morning." said Anna. "But what if he is late one day? I want you to see him, he's so handsome. I want going to marry a gypsy like him someday.

Celeste rolled her eyes, "And so you tell me every morning!" And of they went as they did every morning, until almost a year later.

Seniors and just about a month away from graduation, Anna and Celeste, heads together, walk the same route they started a year ago. Their voices low, whispering teen girl secrets to one another, Anna felt eyes on her, almost as if they were burning into her soul. As she looked over her shoulder, she saw her gypsy, watching her. There was a stirring in her that she never felt before, unfamiliar yet not at all unpleasant. She never told Celeste, who after a year of taking this detour, never stopped complaining of the extra blocks, that he was there, watching. She looked into his eyes, certain that this would be the she gypsy would marry.

Peter's voice brought her back from the past, "Ma, it's time to open gifts. Are you feeling alright? You look a little pale".

"I'm fine Peter. Let's get the young ones to help Old Grandma open this mountain of gifts".