Gold Stars on a Mozart Minuet

Searching FlightAware for my daughter’s arrival from Vienna, I see the yellow planes clumped helter-skelter together on the screen, like the sticky, gold-foil stars Mama used to place on the sheet music where a child had made good progress. She knew the meaning of reward over punishment, having been an adopted, lame child in dirt-poor Mississippi. Her daddy was the kinder one, giving her three Shetland ponies and an accordion when they could not afford it. Her “mother” disapproved, the thin kind of lady who was such a good Christian she’d taken Mama in. But the man she called Daddy loved and watched out for her. We get our mothering wherever we can find it. And just today, when my daughter arrives from the country where Mozart ended up in an unmarked grave, I know how close we are all to it—the people saying never to children whose faces reflect their terror at what is alien, no mothers for you, but here’s a blanket of aluminum.