Swan Lake in the final hours of Imperial Russia. I cannot even imagine now what her life must have been, or how much she must have given up when she came here. I cannot imagine never speaking of it again, and losing all the people you love. I cannot imagine moving to a place like Vermont when you come from Russia. And I wish I knew why she never spoke of it to me, more than she did. Perhaps only because we did not want her to be Danina Petroskova, the ballerina. We only wanted her to be Granny Dan, we only wanted her to be our mother and wife and grandmother. It was easier for us that way, there was nothing for us to live up to. We didn't have to feel that we were less than her earlier life had been, or than she was. We didn't have to know, or feel, her pain, or grief, or loss, or mourn who she had been, if we never knew her. But now, as I think of her, I wish I had known more about her. I wish I could have seen her then, wish I could have been there with her.I put the package aside while I made the Christmas bells with Jeff and Matt, and got the green and red sprinkles all over me. And then afterward, I made cupcakes with Katie and she managed to get the icing all over herself, me, and the kitchen.It was late by the time I got everyone into bed, and Jack called me from Chicago. He had had a long day, but his meetings had gone well. I had forgotten the package completely by then, and only remembered it when I went to get something to drink in the kitchen after midnight. It was still sitting there, off to the side, with a little cupcake batter on the string, and a thin veil of green and red sprinkles.I took the box in my hands, dusted it off, and sat down at the kitchen table with it. It took me a few minutes to undo the string and open it. It was from the nursing home where Granny Dan had spent her last year. I had already picked up all her things, when I stopped by, to thank them after the service. Most of her things had been well-worn, and there had been very little worth keeping, just a lot of pictures of the kids, and a small stack of books. I had kept one book of Russian poetry I knew she loved, and left the rest of them for the nurses. All I saved of hers, of importance to her, was her wedding ring, her gold watch that my grandfather had given her before he married her, and a pair of earrings. She had told me once that the watch had been the first gift my grandfather had ever given her. He'd never been particularly generous with her, in terms of gifts or trinkets, although he had provided well for her. There was an old lace bed jacket that I had brought home with me too, and slipped into the back of my closet. But everything else was donated. So now I couldn't imagine what they had sent me.As the paper peeled away, it revealed a large, square box, about the size of a hat box, and as I picked it up, it was heavy. The note said they had found it at the top of her closet, and they wanted to be sure I got it. And as I lifted off the lid, not sure what I'd find, I caught my breath sharply when I saw them. They were just as I remembered, the toes worn and a little frayed, the ribbons that had gone around her ankles pale and faded. They were her toe shoes. Just as I had seen them years before in her attic. The last pair she had worn before leaving Russia. There were other things in the box as well, a gold locket with a man's photograph in it. He had a well-trimmed beard and a mustache, and in a serious, old-fashioned way, he looked very handsome. He had eyes like hers, which all these years later seemed to laugh out of the photograph, in spite of the fact that he wasn't smiling. There were photographs of other men as well, in uniforms, and I guessed them to be her father and brothers. One of the boys looked incredibly like her. And there was a small, formal portrait of her mother, which I think I'd seen once before. There was the program from her last Swan Lake, a photograph of a cluster of smiling ballerinas, and a young beauty at the center of them whose eyes and face had never changed in all the years since then. It was easy to see that it was Danina. She looked breath-takingly beautiful and incredibly happy. She was laughing in the photograph, and all the other women were looking at her with affection and admiration.And in the bottom of the box was a thick packet of letters. I could see at a glance that they were in Russian, in a neat, elegant hand that looked both masculine and intelligent. They were tied together with a faded blue ribbon and there were a great many of them. And I knew as I held them that the answer to the mystery was there, the secrets she had never told, or shared, once she left Russia. So many smiling faces there, in that box, so many people she had once cared about, and had left, for a life that couldn't possibly have been more different for her.I held the toe shoes in my hand, and gently stroked the satin, thinking about her. How brave she had been, how strong, and how much she had left behind her. I couldn't help wondering if any of them were still alive, if she had meant as much to them, if they still had pictures of her. And I mused silently about the man who had written the letters to her, what he had been to her, and what had happened to him. But just from the careful way she had tied the bow, saved the letters for nearly a century, and took them to the nursing home with her, I knew without being able to read them. He must have been important to her, and from all he had written to her, I guessed easily that he must have loved her dearly.She had had another life before she came to us, long before she came to me. A life so different from what we had seen of her, in Vermont, a life once filled with magic and excitement and glamor. I remembered how stern my grandfather had looked in his photographs, and hoped that this man had brought happiness to her, that he had loved her. She had taken his secrets to her grave with her, and now left them to me … with the toe shoes … the program from Swan Lake … and his letters.I looked at his photograph again then, in the locket, and knew instinctively that the letters were from him. And once again, I burned with a thousand questions. There would be no one to answer them. I thought instantly about having the letters translated, so that I would know what they said. Yet at the same time I sensed that invading the secrets held in them would be a kind of intrusion on her. She hadn't given them to me. She had simply left them. But knowing how close we had been, I hoped she wouldn't mind it. We had been kindred spirits. She had left behind a thousand memories for me, of times we had shared, things we had done, legends and fairy tales she had told me. Perhaps along with the legends, she would not mind sharing this part of her story with me. At least, I hoped not. And my excitement over finding the letters and the photographs began to burn like a flame I could not dim. There was no running away from the truths she had hidden for a lifetime.In my eyes, she had always been old, always been mine, always been Granny Dan. But in another time, another place, there had been dancing, people, laughter, love. She had left only a whisper of it with me, to remind me that she had once been young. And as I finally came to understand that, I sat looking at the smiling face of the young ballerina in the photograph, and a tear of longing for her rolled down my face, as I smiled, and held the faded pink toe shoes she had left me. And as the ancient pink satin touched my cheek, I looked at the neat stacks of letters tied with ribbons, hoping that at last I would know her story. I sensed with my entire being that there was much to tell.