SZ discovers an items that has been lost to her since her mother passed away nearly ten years ago.  It had a great sentimental value to her back then and all the emotions of her mothers death and lost childhood come back to her when she comes into contact with the item again.  It was as if the item itself carried her mother’s spirit.  SZ felt her mother’s presence in the object.  She felt as if she was awake and having a dream set in the past.  

She breaks out of her flashback and remembers that she is in a store and that the item has a price.  It’s a price she cannot afford.  This angers her.  It angers her to the extent of action.  She no longer wants to part with the item and does not want the store to have it.  In a split second she decides to take the item, hide it in her purse and leave the store.  

This item is central to the relationship of the store and the subtext.  The store represents her family’s living memory.  It is more like a closet or an attic that has been sealed up for quite sometime.  But at the moment she discovers the item, she is vulnerable and receptive to being close to her family.  “Don’t know what you got, till it’s gone.”  

Brainstorming of the item:

Like Aladdin’s lamp

Light giving

Of or related to knowledge

Bearing knowledge

Aladdin’s lamp was a simple object

Unassuming

A key?  Fancy old one?

A key might work because SZ will think it is the very key that her mother used to open and close her jewelry box.  She’ll want it for herself (even though she doesn’t have the box) so that no one else will buy it.  (What kinds of fancy antique keys are sold?)

The price of the key is 999.00?  

When she is caught, she begs the salesman in the shop not to prosecute her.  Not to tell the police.  He says he can do nothing until the owner comes back.  After what feels like an eternity, the owner returns.  She is an old white woman (a bit like Mrs. Havesham).  She gives SZ the impression that she’ll prosecute to the full extent of the law.  And that she has no concern for the fate of a brown-skinned daughter of immigrants.  In fact, she gives off the impression that all immigrants have stolen the good country that she lives in.  (Theft of an ideal, loss)

How does the chapter end?  When she is caught?  What does the key look like?