When Francesca's eyes met mine as I sang my patriotic little heart out, it wasn't me so much as it was the memory of someone else that led her to tears.

Francesca grew up in a burrow shouldered between the Tower District and the high banked bluffs overlooking the sea.  Her family's tiny thatch-roofed house faced the morning sun as it reflected off the rolling waves.  It was a sliver of a home, wedged in between dozens of others. A few houses away lived a girl Francesca's age with deep brown eyes and dark hair worn in a thick braid down her back.  Her family was poor, poorer even than Francesca's, but the girl had a spirit that refused to break even under the crushing weight of poverty. The girls were friends by default of their shared neighborhood, but even had they lived miles apart, they would have found each other somehow—they were as inseparable as twins. 

As the girls grew, the cheerful brown-eyed girl and the shy fair-haired beauty planned a future in which they would never have to be apart. They would marry brothers, live side by side, and raise their children together. These imagined offspring would enjoy the same friendship they themselves had known. Life would be hard, but it would be full of love.

Then Francesca was betrothed to the Leader and all of their dreams were dashed. Her friend married a grocer, an orphan with a handsome profile and lips whose touch made her skin tingle. Within three years, she had three sons.  The year after that she gave birth to me, hours after her devoted childhood friend brought you into the world. 

The two women, once as close as sisters, now had little in common.  Despite this, though never known to them, their children shared a birthday.  And now those children share a series of clandestine letters slid back and forth under a bedroom door.

I have my father's eyes, but my oval face, the divot in my chin, my long brown hair—I am my mother's daughter.  This is what Francesca saw that day.

She tried to forget me, but how could she?  It would be like forgetting her entire childhood.  As soon as your father was distracted with his dictatorial business, she sent a trusted servant to find our last known residence. My family was gone, but a neighbor told the servant what had happened to my parents and where I could be found. 

What the servant told Francesca was almost more than she could bear. She told your father she wished to sponsor an orphan and begged him to agree to let the poor dear visit. It would only improve his public image. After receiving his consent, she sent word along with a generous donation to the school I had called home for the past year and they ushered me off to the Tower. 

I've already told you what happened next.