Why We Can't Say No

by Adelheide1121

Anna's sharp eyes ranged from sea to earth to heaven. She investigated everything, her mind asking innumerable questions of her surroundings. Once she determined the scene was safe she thought of her next move. Now if only she could get this surly Australian to relinquish some control and agree to her plan.

1. Chapter 1

2019, Port Charles

She tore through the contents of the cardboard box with ferocity, flinging aside everything that didn't matter. Her fear waxed red hot when she couldn't see what she was so desperate to find. It has to be there; it MUST be there. She would go mad if it weren't.

As she continued her search, Anna's heart plummeted from her chest to land at her feet, where the contents of a stained and scorched cardboard box lay strewn about the floor surrounding her as if memories could be placed like objects in a box and put on a shelf to be forgotten. Anna had never understood the importance of being certain of your past. She had never questioned that the memories, good or bad, were always hers and hers alone. Now felt like she was floating around untethered in the ether of history, unable to trust her own mind and questioning everything else along with it. She was haunted by the thought that her life might not be her own, that someone else had tampered with her mind. That she was a lie.

Then at the bottom of that unremarkable box, she found it. Proof. Proof that her life was her own. She clasped the beloved trinket in her hands, kneeling as if in prayer, for prayer it was. A prayer of thanksgiving that nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember how to find it again.

The bracelet was beautiful; gold and green enamel sparkling in the light of her living room. It was somehow fitting that this was the object that affirmed that the most beautiful person in her life, her daughter-her Robin- was hers. As the full weight of what she thought she had lost pressed upon her, tears streamed down her face unchecked, tears of both joy and sorrow. All in all, this shining circle was a piece of a never-to-be-forgotten spring — one of those times which seldom come into any life, but leave a rich tapestry of beautiful memories behind — one of those times which, in a fortunate combination of love, excitement and danger, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.

Until it, all came to a sudden violent end.

Anna understood better than most that there is a price to pay for everything she gets or takes in this world. Although ambitions are well worth having, they are not cheap but exact their dues in trials and tribulations of anxiety and discouragement. Yes, the object she held in her hands was beautiful but wouldn't it have been more beautiful still if there had been no separation or misunderstanding or machinations that tore her world apart. . . if instead she and Robert had come hand in hand all the way through life, with no memories behind them but happy ones which belonged to each other?

Her thoughts were suddenly an ocean and lifetime away, back to the very beginning, even before Paris. Memories set against the Palermo skyline, the wind whipping saltwater through her hair and Robert's hand in hers, setting the stage for what would be her greatest adventure. Anna felt that magnetic tug at her insides all over again. She closed her eyes and her mind reached out to the past, collecting the memories herself, like slipping pearls onto a string for safekeeping.