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My mother and I were dreamers. When the days were soft and tender, we sat on the beach, digging our toes into the hot sand. The big breakers came in slowly; their shoulders growing tall and green. They crashed in thunderous white, and we would sit in silence, the breeze scrubbing the hot sun from our faces. She was 34; I was 10. She was short, plump, a woman of fair skin and brownish hair. She was feminine and prim. I asked what she dreamed. Jenny Tier Bishop laughed and ruffled my wet hair. "You," she said, "are an inquisitive little boy." "Yes, ma'am," I said. She told me her dream. Someday, when my father had a lot of money, he would buy diamond earrings for her. Not big ones, of course. "See," she said, pulling her ears, "these were pierced when I was 15. Wouldn't I look pretty with little diamonds?" "Yes, ma'am," I said. "You sure would." She asked me my dream. I said that when I grew up, I would own a house right here at the beach. I would be able to look at the ocean every day, in all of its moods. My house would have servants who would have nothing to do but carry silver trays loaded with sweets and chocolate bars. She looked down at me, the bun of hair loose on her neck. My mother laughed at my dream. "Little boy," she said — and I knew that I had lost her admiration. My feet came up out of the sand and I ran at top speed to meet the big curling wave. Her dream came true. My father gave her the diamond earrings. They, were tiny icebergs in big gold prongs. She sat before the mirror, turning her head from side to side. My father paid a little a month for those earrings for a long time. I was glad her dream came true. When they dressed to go out, I told her how beautiful she looked. She wasn't really beautiful but she lifted her head like a queen when those earrings were on. Times became what my father called "hard". The earrings were gone a long time before noticed. When I asked about them, she smiled and cried same time. "Your father had to pawn them," she said. "He'll get them em back." Policemen were poorly paid in those days and then the city cut their salaries further. My mother made our clothes on a sewing machine. At night, she sewed rosettes on silk garters for a penny a piece. Every year she paid the interest on the pawn ticket. Then, one summer, she surrendered. The payment was due but she ignored it. "Earrings," she said, "are a form of vanity we can't afford." Great good luck sometimes touches a person at least once. It touched me. A book I wrote became a best-seller in 16 countries. I bought a house on the beach. My dream had come true. When the house was right, I invited my mother and father to it. There were no servants carrying trays of candy. But the house was on the same beach. My hair was grey, but the surf still thundered with youth. I handed the plushy box to my mother, "Your time to dream," I said. Her hands began to shake. "John," she said to my father, "help me with this. I'm so clumsy." Dad opened the box and murmured, "Jenny, they're beautiful." The earrings were screwed into place. "How do I look?" she asked. We said, "Beautiful." She couldn't tell. She had been blind for years..