BeatingDeadHeroes

We're talking about A Woman in Amber, and I'm thinking about my mother and the opal at my throat. My mother has never given me opals; they are my father's mother's work. I haven't spoken to her in a long time. She doesn't really like me much, nor do I care for her. She is fashionable, and she smokes too much. But for Christmas or my birthday, amongst clothes that don't fit—I have always grown since she last saw me, she still believes me seven—or that I would not deign to wear even if they did fit, there were sometimes books, and three opals, burning like the moon's tears: earrings (my ears were not pierced) with gorgeous stones but che...