Although I was, of course, no jewelry expert, I could tell that the precious stone was very valuable. I hadn't seen one like it since I'd lived in the Winter Palace with George and his family before we'd married.

"How on earth did you come to have an object like that in your possession?" I gasped.

"While I was in Germany, I helped a man to escape from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp," Rhett told me. "He was a Russian, a Soviet. His name was Viktor. He gave me that stone in gratitude. Told me his father had been one of the Bolsheviks involved in the deaths of Grandpa's brother and his family. He said Grandpa's sister-in-law and her daughters all had jewels like that sewn inside their clothing on the night they were shot. That was why they'd been so hard to kill. Anyway, Viktor's father kept that one and handed it down to his son. Isn't it great, Grandma? Now we can buy Great Grandpa and Great Grandma's house back."

I remembered the bleak day we'd been forced to pack our things and leave my parents' grand house for the much smaller one in which I now lived. Rhett had been in his teens then. I'd never forget the day he'd come home from school and found the house deserted, the hurt and anger I'd seen in his eyes.

"It just ain't right, Grandma!" he'd cried in dismay. "You were born in this house!"

"I know," I'd replied wearily. "But with the economy the way it is, it just can't be helped. We're fortunate to have another home to move into. Many are homeless."

"I'm gonna be a man someday." Tears had been in his eyes, and his voice had quivered. "And when I am, I'm gonna buy your house back for you, Grandma."

Now, all these years later, the opportunity seemed to have arrived. Yet a vision suddenly occurred to me: a vision of a sad middle-aged woman living with dreams of her former life, a life filled with glamor, splendor, and majesty that had been suddenly and cruelly snatched from her, leaving her with only faint memories, ghosts of all that had once been hers, the ones she'd once loved who were now gone, departed for heaven's realm. I knew what I must do.

"No, Rhett," I told my grandson. "You must give it to Nikolaus to take to his mother. It was her mother's, and now it rightfully belongs to her."

"But Grandma, he's the enemy! At least, he was..."

"Rhett, you know as well as I do that that was only because of chance circumstances, that if things were different, he'd simply be your cousin."

"Yes, Grandma." I could tell that he was disappointed. "I only wanted to make you happy."

"I know that," I told him. "You're a fine young man, Rhett. I'm proud to have you as my grandson."

Rhett and Nikolaus soon departed for Europe and the war. Although they still fought for opposite sides, I knew that the bond of friendship forged between the two young men following the discovery of their close familial relationship would never be broken.

Months passed. I'd put the incident to the back of my mind when one day I received a letter that both shocked and elated me.

Dearest Aunt Bonnie,

You cannot imagine the joy it brought me to learn that you are alive and well and doing all right. Although it saddened me to learn of the passing of Uncle George, I know that he is now with my dear parents and sisters and darling Alexei, and all our other loved ones who have gone on before us.
In the midst of this dreadful war, the closeness of family is more important than ever. After the loss of my darling Vova and our sweet babe, I thought that my own life was over as well. It was only through the mercy of God that I met my Wilhelm. Without his love, and that of our sweet children, I honestly don't know how I ever would have survived. After all my previous losses, it is that that gives me the strength to go on.
My fondest wish is to see you and all my cousins again in this life, Aunt Bonnie, but if that never happens, I trust that we shall all be together again in that blessed land where we shall never again have to say good-bye.

Your loving niece,

Olga Schiller