Normalcy was never something Tesla Edison grew up with; she was never really familiar with things that others grew up with. Growing up in a single parent household, after her father dies in an accident, isn't easy. However, she's out to prove that s...
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As the last few weeks of Tesla's senior summer are approaching, no one is more surprised as she is to find that her mother would be moving to Massachusetts to be closer to her daughter. The very few people that Tesla does speak to in Holland—the small Michigan town—are all a little shocked about her acceptance into Harvard. Which definitely made her feel confused. Do they not believe she's smart enough? She took both the SAT and the ACT twice to make sure her scores were good enough. Tesla was involved in school, and even got soccer scholarships, although she would not be continuing the sport in college.
Why is everyone so surprised? Why is her mother so worried? Tesla has plenty of time to wonder about these questions as she and her mother pack up their small house for the move. Harvard's Campus is in Cambridge, and Tesla's mother managed to find an apartment in Watertown that was perfect for the fifty-three year-old. With the busy college town nearby, and Boston not too far away from that, Massachusetts is definitely a place to keep Elsa Edison occupied once she's an empty nester. Maybe that's why she wants to move closer to her daughter, so she can have her daughter stay over more often.
"Would you mind starting in the cellar, liebling?" Elsa calls from her bedroom. She folds a quilt into a cardboard box and tucks the loose strands of her salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear. She waits for her daughter's response.
"Of course, Mutti!"
Elsa smiles to herself as Tesla ducks out of the bathroom to head down to the cellar. The cellar is pretty small, nothing that is down there is too hard to move by herself. Aside from the old china cabinet that used to be Tesla's father's grandmother's. On the far end of the cellar are about thirty small boxes stacked in five rows. They aren't heavy, and curiosity getting the best of her, Tesla reaches for a box and reads the writing on the side.
#8—1917, J.B.B.
"1917," Tesla whispers. Locking her curiosity away, Tesla picks up the box and turns back toward the stairs, determined to get the rest of the boxes packed away so they can get to Massachusetts, then would she be able to dig through these cellar boxes and figure out what J.B.B. means.
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The daunting feeling of Tesla's last few days of childhood slipping away really hits her hard when she receives a call from Kimberly, who is already in New York, preparing for her second year at New York University. Tesla is sitting on the edge of her twin bed in her new bedroom, which is also being used as storage for all the boxes she took from the cellar. Her mother is putting away her kitchen supplies, and Tesla can hear her listening to some music from the fifties.
"So, you move into your dorm in, what, five days? You nervous?"
Tesla shrugs, pressing the telephone closer to her ear. The cord wraps around her knee, disappearing around the door to the mahogany credenza, where the transmitter waits patiently for the receiver to be put back in place. "I—I don't know. It's just school..."
