Part of this story within a story is based on an amazing picture book called, Erika's Story by Ruth Vander Zee and illustrated by Roberto Innocenti. The author of that book meets a woman who basically tells her the story Mrs. Rosen tells Emma. It's a heart-breaking story, poignant, and well-worth reading, just keep the tissues handy.
Emma was about fifteen when she landed into her last foster home with Mrs. Rosenblatt, an older woman around seventy-five. Emma was angry at the placement, she'd been caught running away again, but instead of landing in juvy, she landed here, in the house time forgot. When Emma first met the woman, she felt like she was sucked in by her piercing eyes, but Mrs. Rosenblatt only gave a little grunt of acceptance, then showed her the house. Emma was surprised to find out she was the only foster child in the home. She didn't share a room, the home was almost frightening at first in it's silence. Mrs. Rosenblatt made her go to school, and she checked in regularly enough to make Emma feel that she at least was interested in Emma, but other then that she left the young girl to her own devices. She didn't pry and she treated Emma with respect and dignity. She didn't demand anything from Emma but the same, so Emma stayed. It wasn't her long term plan, but for the first time in awhile, she felt like she could breathe. It's not like she loved the old woman or anything, Ingrid's craziness had ensured any sort of budding emotion would be nipped back, but she did kind of worry about her. She was old. She could stumble and fall and who would take care of her? She didn't have anyone. They could kind of, take care of each other…for awhile. But it wasn't like Emma cared about her…not really.
It was about three months into her stay when she ripped her blanket. She didn't mean too, she was just tugging it loose, but when she heard the ripping sound, her heart sank. It was a tiny rip but looking at it made Emma feel a panic she rarely gave into. It was her blanket and seeing it disfigured upset her more then she could say. After a long internal debate, she went to Mrs. Rosenblatt to ask for some thread.
Mrs. Rosenblatt peered over her glasses to look at Emma, "got some in my basket. What color do you need?"
Emma rose, already heading for where the sewing basket was kept, "I'll get it, don't worry."
"If the thread doesn't match the cloth, it won't look right," the older woman said. "It's like spreading finger paints on a Monet painting. It just ruins it."
Emma hesitated.
"Let me take a look at it. I'll match it right up," Mrs. Rosenblatt continued. "I have at least a hundred spools of thread. Let me find the right one for you."
Emma nodded slowly, then turned to go to her room. She took her blanket out from her hiding spot and brought it into the kitchen. She wasn't sure, but she thought the older woman's eyes sharpened when she saw it. Mrs. Rosenblatt took it into her twisted hands, spreading it on her lap, fingering the material and humming appreciatively. She looked at Emma with those piercing eyes, "this always been yours?"
"Yes," Emma said, then grudgingly, "they found it with me." She didn't want the older woman thinking she stole it or something. Yes, she was a thief, but not something like this. She would never do that.
"Your parents dead?" The words were blunt but the tone was kind.
Emma shrugged stiffly, "You've read my file. I don't know. Nobody does."
Mrs. Rosenblatt's attention turned back to the blanket. She picked up an edge, then one of the spools. "This one here will do. Let me sew it up for you, eh? They may not look like much now but I can assure you, my fingers were once known for sewing things as bright and precious as fairy wings."
Emma sighed, but nodded. Sewing was certainly never a skill she had been taught, and the thought of ruining her blanket was enough to let her put her trust, temporarily, in the hands of this woman.
"Thread this for me please," the older woman said, thrusting the thread and needle at Emma.
Emma did so, then watched her quietly.
"You think your parents just left you then?" the woman demanded, holding the blanket to the light to look at the tear more carefully.
Emma snorted, "I know it. And all of my foster parents have made sure to let me know it." She was hunched forward, almost like she'd been hit in the stomach, her eyes never leaving her blanket.
Mrs. Rosenblatt looked at her speculatively then back at the blanket. "Hm."
"What?" Emma couldn't stand the knowing tone in the woman's voice.
"You just seem…very sure of yourself based on little evidence."
"I was left on the side of the road, what more evidence do I need?" Emma asked, beginning to get angry.
"Sit, sit for a moment," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "You don't need to run away."
"I wasn't going to run," Emma mumbled. She realized she was perched on her toes, and let her feet settle to the floor. Grudgingly she moved to the loveseat across from the older woman's rocking chair and seated herself on the edge, body stiff.
"I'm going to tell you a little story," Mrs. Rosenblatt began.
Without meaning too, a sigh of irritation escaped Emma.
Instead of looking upset, the older woman grinned a little, "I know, I know, an old woman's tale. Listen anyway." The smile disappeared from her mouth. "My mother's name was Shyla, or I should say, that was her adopted name, once she was taken in by my grandmother."
Emma had crossed her arms preemptively across her chest, but they loosened a little at that.
"She was found at the edge of the railway tracks. She was wrapped in a pink blanket, but it was fairly obvious that she had been thrown from one of the passing trains."
Emma swallowed hard.
Mrs. Rosenblatt saw her reaction and nodded, "I know. Wasn't that terrible? Throwing a tiny, little baby from a moving train on to the ground? She could have been killed, her skull crushed or her tiny body broken."
Emma's arms dropped and she stared at the carpet.
"I suppose, if we hadn't know there was a bigger story, we would have thought her parents were quite monstrous."
Emma licked her lips, "t-the whole story?"
"Well you see, my grandmother, the one who found her, and later adopted her, actually witnessed the whole thing. She saw the train going by, it had slowed a little since it was near the station, and she saw this bright, pink bundle thrown from one of the cars. She went to see what it was, never even contemplating that it would be a child." Mrs. Rosen did not look at Emma as she went on with her story. Her fingers had found a rhythm and she was mending the blanket with stitches so small, one would need a magnifying glass to see them.
"Why?" Emma whispered.
"The train was heading for Bergen-Belsen in Germany. It was full of Jewish men, women, and children. Have you heard of the Holocaust, Emma?"
Emma nodded slowly, her eyes showing a dawning understanding. "Y-yes, in school. We learned about it in history."
"Mmmm," Mrs. Rosenblatt said. "So you will better understand when I say that while my mother might have died from being thrown from the train, she would have undoubtedly died in one of the camps, probably as soon as her parents stepped off the train."
Swallowing hard, Emma scrubbed her hand over her eyes.
"If my grandmother had not seen, with her own eyes, my mother being thrown from the train, she might have simply found her on the side of the train tracks, abandoned, and apparently...unwanted. We still don't know the whole story. We don't know who her parents were, if they lived, if she had siblings. We only know that her parents were so desperate, they took a dangerous chance for their child's survival."
Unbidden, tears leaked out of Emma's eyes. Mrs. Rosenblatt pretended to ignore them, getting up to sit next to Emma on the love seat, spreading the blanket out so it covered both of their laps, the tear no longer visible. "I'm just an old woman, but I know a thing or two about sewing and material. This wool is some of the softest I've ever felt. This ribbon? Made of satin and very, very strong. Here, where your name was embroidered, they put it on a section of silk...expensive silk from what I can tell. This blanket probably took months of work. It was done by hand, a machine never came anywhere near it." She looked at Emma, "generally when something that is handmade, it's done for sentimental reasons."
Emma sniffled, "knowing my luck, my parents probably stole it before they dumped me."
Mrs. Rosenblatt looked at her steadily, "you don't believe that."
A smart retort died in Emma's throat. She didn't believe that. Whatever else had happened to her, whatever her parents were like, this blanket was hers, it's something she knew, she felt. It was always hers. She shrugged, trying to act like it didn't matter.
"I don't know your whole story Emma. Maybe your parents were terrible people, but the truth is, you don't know either. What you think you know is only half-truths, half the story, and even most of that may be fabricated. Maybe you should allow yourself to consider the possibility that your parents were trying to save you from something worse then leaving you on the side of the road. Maybe they loved you so much, that they were willing to separate from you, to ensure your continued survival."
Emma's throat was so choked that she knew she was going to cry. She grabbed her blanket, curling it into her fingers, "I'm gonna go to bed," she mumbled, refusing to look up and rushed to her room. She locked the door as soon as she closed it and threw herself onto the bed, burrowing her face in her blanket, strangled sobs coming from her so quickly that for a minute, she couldn't even breathe. She wept for Mrs. Rosenblatt's mother, a baby who had been abandoned so she could be saved. She wept for that baby's parents, whose desperation and sorrow must have nearly killed them as they let their child go. She wept for herself, because being unwanted was terrible, but the thought on being loved so deeply, deeply enough to be sacrificed by devoted parents was almost too much to contemplate, too scary because she already considered herself unlovable. She lay in bed as shadows began creeping across her bedroom and as the tears dried on her cheeks. She knew at some point she had fallen asleep because she woke up calling for a mom and a dad she never had. Exhaustion pulled at her and she lay in bed, gazing at the ceiling with Mrs. Rosenblatt's words still ringing in her ears. The older woman was right. She didn't know the whole story and she should. It was her story. Her life. She was tired of the so-called people in charge allocating information in doses only they controlled. She deserved to know what had happened to her. Then…maybe then she could find what she was looking for.
Two months after their talk, Mrs. Rosenblatt landed in the hospital for her third bout with pneumonia. Her prognosis was grim. Emma was moved to another home which she ran away from in less than a week.
The teenager visited Mrs. Rosenblatt in the hospital. She didn't love her, Emma Swan had decided that her hardened heart wouldn't allow it, but the woman had given her valuable insight and for that she was grateful. She stayed into the hospital room for hours, listening to the oxygen hissing and the heart monitor beep. She seemed unbelievably frail. When the woman finally opened her eyes, Emma pressed flowers in her hands, "thanks."
Mrs. Rosenblatt blinked, the medication barely allowing her to keep her eyes half-open, "running?" she rasped.
Emma nodded slightly, reaching out briefly to squeeze the older woman's hand. "Yeah."
"I think you're going to do amazing things, Emma Swan," the woman said, "I really do."
Emma gave her a small smile, then disappeared out the hospital doors.
She stole cash from her foster parents, a bike from the neighbors, and at the last moment, one other thing. She broke into her social worker's office and took her file. Every paper, every photograph, everything they had on her. She stuffed it into her backpack. Now she had the beginning, or at least part of the beginning of her story. It was up to her to find the ending.