Everything has a story…and so did the simple strand of pearls she held in her hand. But what intrigued her more than the obviously old necklace, was the list of names and dates on the paper, yellowed with age, lying in the bottom of the faded jewel case. Each line was written with a different hand, perhaps even by the woman listed there.
A great-aunt on her mother's side of the family had given the old jewel case to her. All she had know about her mother's family was that her grandfather had died in Vietnam when her mother was just a baby and her grandmother about the time she herself had been born. She didn't know anything about her father and her own mother had died when she was six. After that she had been placed into the foster care system to be bounced from one home to another until she had turned eighteen. As soon as she was out, she began looking for family members. All she had been able to find was a great-aunt, her grandfather's twin sister, whose only son had died tragically as a young man.
As she looked over the names on the paper, she began to grow more curious about the women listed there. Were these women her family? What was their relationship to her? Did the box of papers and photographs sent by her aunt's lawyer hold the answers to her questions about her family? Only time would tell, but she would start with the last name on the list: her great-aunt Riley.