I remained seated for a long time.
My granddaughter eventually sat beside me.
She did not rush me.
I was grateful for that.
There was something about the package that made ordinary conversation feel impossible.
I had not expected this evening to become a meeting with my childhood.
I had expected another quiet night.
Instead, I was remembering a street in Warsaw and a boy whose future I had never been allowed to see.
My granddaughter finally asked whether I knew the man.
I told her I did not.
At least, I did not know who had delivered the message.
I explained that I had once known a boy named Stanislaw.
He had lived next door to my family in Poland.
She listened without interrupting.
I told her that we had been close friends when we were young.
We had gone to school together.
We had shared books.
We had spent our evenings outside.
Those details came back more easily than I expected.
I could almost remember the familiar routine.
The mornings.
The walk.
The sound of someone waiting outside.
My granddaughter asked whether Stanislaw was the person who had made the promise.
I nodded.
I told her about the conversation.
I was careful not to make it sound more important than it had seemed at the time.
We had been children.
He had told me that he wanted to marry me when we grew up.
I had laughed.
I had told him not to forget.
He had promised he would remember.
My granddaughter looked at me.
She asked whether I had believed him.
I smiled a little.
I told her that I had not thought about it seriously.
Not then.
It was a sweet thing to say.
A childhood declaration.
Something that made us feel grown up for a few minutes.
I had never imagined that a stranger might remember it decades later.
My granddaughter asked what had happened to him.
I told her the truth.
I did not know.
My parents had taken us away from Poland in 1939.
We had gone to Chicago.
After that, we lost contact with Stanislaw and his family.
I had never received an explanation.
I had never learned where they went.
I did not even know whether he had survived.
My granddaughter became quiet.
I could tell she understood that this was not an ordinary childhood memory.
There was a missing part of my life that had never been filled in.
She asked whether I had ever tried to find him.
I explained that the years after leaving Poland had been difficult.
My family had been trying to establish a new life.
There were responsibilities.
There were changes.
There was the simple work of becoming accustomed to a country that had once been foreign to us.
I had eventually married and raised children.
I had not spent my entire life waiting for a boy from Warsaw.
But I had never received an answer about what became of him.
Those were two different things.
I wanted her to understand that.
She looked at the package again.
Then she asked why the man had chosen her.
I could not answer.
I wondered the same thing.
He had apparently known that she was connected to me.
He had known the name Zofia.
And he had known enough about my childhood promise to send a message.
It was difficult to believe that all of this had happened by accident.
Still, I did not want to make assumptions.
I had no right to invent an explanation simply because I wanted one.
I had spent too many years wondering about Stanislaw.
I did not want to confuse hope with knowledge.
My granddaughter asked whether I wanted her to keep the package somewhere safe.
I told her I would take care of it.
I wanted it close.
I wanted to examine it without feeling that someone was watching me.
She understood.
For a little while, neither of us spoke.
I thought about how many people had known me only as Zoe.
My husband had known that name.
My children had known it.
My grandchildren had grown up using it.
But somewhere, apparently, there was someone who knew the name I had carried as a child.
That fact alone affected me.
It was as if someone had reached through all the years and called me back to the beginning.
I looked at my granddaughter.
I told her that I wanted to know who the man was.
She said she wished she could tell me.
Then she repeated that he had not introduced himself.
That left us with more questions than answers.
But one thing was certain.
The message had been intended for me.
And the man had chosen the name Zofia for a reason.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: My Granddaughter Wanted Answers Too, but I Was the Only One Who Could Understand Why Three Words From Warsaw Mattered So Much
Before America Gave Me a New Name, There Was a Boy in Warsaw Who Believed Our Childhood Promises Would Last Forever
Part 6 of 16
