The Silence Of Gold

 By Maryanna Gabriel


A gold nugget has been kicking around my jewelry box for years. It came with a note. "Belonged to your great grandfather..."

A jeweler informed me that it was too soft for him to do anything with. Recently I discovered an assayer and gave it to him to price out. To my surprise it was worth almost two hundred dollars. "I'll take it," I said. It can go towards my tuition, an amount which is killing me. I wonder what my great grandfather would have thought if he knew one day he would help his great granddaughter with her education. 

Nobody in the family talked about him. My questions were met with pursed lips. I think he abandoned my great grandmother with three sons, but it is a mystery. There is no photograph or birthdate. Just a name. When I did the family tree I tried to find more information but the trail went cold.

I wish now I had been persistent and asked more questions. Maybe he panned for gold in the Yukon and hung out with Diamond Tooth Gertie and that is how he got the nugget. Or maybe he was a gambler and the nugget was payment. Whatever the answer, I will never know. It must have been quite the scandal at the time for me to have been met with such silence.