The Lottery(Sylvia Skrmetta) Isabelle watched as her eighty-year-old mother carefully scanned the newspaper page for the winning lottery numbers. Once located, she stared at the numbers for several seconds as if willing them to change. “Ah shit,” she exclaimed unmindful of any ears she might offend.

“What’s the matter Mama?” Isabelle knew too well the routine.

Her mother looked up and smiled. She was a very young looking old woman with barely a hundred grey hairs on her head and every tooth in her mouth was her own. “I know it is just a matter of time,” she said with confidence. She still had a very distinct foreign accent even after more than fifty years away from her beloved Italy.

Isabelle took a seat at the kitchen table. “The odds of winning are a zillion to one, Mama,” she said as she took her mother’s frail hand in her own.

“Stop petting me!” Her mother yanked her hand away. “I’m not a dog.”

Isabelle stood up. “Fine, you keep setting yourself up for disappointment every week. What do I care?”

“Oh, you are going to care when I am filthy rich. You’ll be the first in line.”

“Mama, why do you torture me? I love you and you are dirt poor. Do you think I would love you more if you were rich?”

“Maybe.”

Isabelle stomped over to the stove where the espresso pot was bubbling over. “Would you like your daughter who loves you for your money to pour you a cup of coffee?”

“Don’t be stupid, Isabelle.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes, that’s a yes.” Isabelle’s mother shifted around to watch her daughter pour the wonderfully aromatic brew. “I know you think I’m a silly old woman.”

“No I don’t Mama.”

“Stop interrupting your mother!”

“Sorry.”

“I said, you think I’m silly. What you don’t know is why I am so certain of winning the lottery one day.”

Isabelle started to speak but was quickly silenced.

“Shhhh!” Her mother took the coffee from her daughter’s hand. “It was the gypsy.”

“What gypsy?” asked Isabelle.

“I was seventeen,” began her mother, “in the old country. Bands of gypsies were always coming into our little village. Everyone knew they were thieves, but they fascinated me. One summer our village was celebrating…who knows which saint…anyway, there were gypsies begging for coins, and some wanted money to tell your fortune.” Isabelle’s mother took a slow sip from her cup. She had stopped talking and was staring out the window.

“Mama?”

“Oh…for a moment I could feel and smell and see everything I saw that day, how odd.”

Isabelle again took the seat by her mother. She couldn’t help but worry about her after the stroke last spring. Although there were no physical signs, the mental damage had been apparent over the past few months. “Mama, you were telling me about the gypsy.” Isabelle wondered why she had never heard this story before.

“Yes, the gypsy.” Her mother sighed. “It was a good thing the sisters never found out. Oh…I can’t even imagine what they would have done.”

The sisters from the convent were very strict with all the children that had been with them through the war. Isabelle knew her mother had stayed with the Catholic nuns for several years.

“Mama, what about the gypsy?”

“I used the money Sister Maria gave me for the bus. She never knew I was walking to school so I could save the money for myself. That’s how I could pay the gypsy to tell me my fortune.”

Isabelle began to laugh. Her mother was a vivacious woman at eighty; she could only imagine what she was like at seventeen.

“I was terrible,” she laughed, “but I was so curious and maybe too smart for my own good. I can still see the gypsy…she was beautiful. Her hair and eyes were as black as the night. She wore a very colorful scarf around the top of her head and earrings—very large earrings.” Isabelle’s mother touched her own earlobes as she spoke. “Her clothes were torn and filthy, and her feet were bare and very dirty. I couldn’t even count the number of gold bangles she had around her wrists. The bracelets jingled when she moved her arms. All her motions seemed like a dance. I had never seen anyone like her before. I’ll never forget her voice. It was deep, very sensual, and very Romanian.”

Isabelle began to laugh again. “You can’t remember what you ate this morning; how is it you remember the gypsy?”

Her mother began to laugh as well, “How should I know?”

“So then what happened? What did she say?”

“She said,” there was a pause and a smile. “She said I would be as rich the day I died as the day I was born.”

There was a moment of silence. Isabelle knew her mother had been born to a wealthy Italian man. She also knew her grandfather was bankrupt before he died and left his ten-year-old daughter penniless.

“Wow,” said Isabelle. “Wow!”

“Now you see why I know it’s just a matter of time.”

“Yes,” admitted Isabelle. “From now on Mama, we go in halves for the lottery tickets.”

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