Chapter 5 - THE BOX ROBERT LEFT BEHIND
Helen stared at the brass key.
“No.”
Linda’s expression hardened.
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“Robert gave it to me.”
“You should have given it back after the funeral.”
“He told me not to.”
Claire held the key.
“What box?”
Linda nodded toward Robert’s desk.
“Bottom cabinet.”
Helen stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
“Claire, please.”
That word stopped her.
Please.
Her mother rarely used it when she truly needed something.
Claire looked at Evan.
He stood beside Emma, clutching the returned three hundred dollars.
“This was Grandpa’s money for him.”
Helen wiped her face.
“I know.”
“Then why shouldn’t he have it?”
“Because that box is not just money.”
Claire walked toward the desk.
Evan followed.
So did Emma.
Nobody sent them away.
The cabinet contained an old cedar box Claire remembered from childhood.
Robert used to keep fishing licenses and stamps inside it.
The brass key fit.
Claire opened the lid.
On top lay a folded star chart.
Under it were nine hundred dollars in hundred-dollar bills.
Untouched.
Evan whispered, “Whoa.”
Beside the money was a cheap red notebook.
Robert’s handwriting covered the first page.
EVAN’S TELESCOPE.
He had listed models.
Prices.
Notes about lenses.
Underneath was something Claire had not expected.
A second column.
EMMA — MUSIC.
Robert had apparently been saving for a used keyboard too.
Claire looked at Helen.
“You knew this?”
Helen nodded.
“He was planning both.”
Dana picked up the notebook.
“Then why did you hide it?”
Helen’s voice cracked.
“Because when he told me about Evan’s telescope, all I heard was my father talking about my brothers’ bicycles.”
Claire stared at her.
“But he was saving for Emma too.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Helen pressed a hand against her forehead.
“I knew the facts. That doesn’t mean I felt them.”
It was perhaps the most truthful thing she had said.
Emma turned pages.
Grandpa had written about a keyboard he found at a church sale.
Then another note.
Emma likes songs.
Evan likes stars.
Let them like what they like.
Dana laughed through tears.
“That sounds exactly like Dad.”
Evan looked at Emma.
“Do you want a keyboard?”
She shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“You can use mine if I get one someday.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“I said keyboard.”
“Oh.”
Claire almost smiled.
Then she saw another envelope beneath the notebooks.
FOR HELEN.
Her mother whispered, “Don’t.”
Claire handed it to her.
“It’s yours.”
Helen did not take it.
Linda said, “Robert wrote it before the cancer got bad.”
Finally Helen accepted the envelope.
Her fingers shook as she opened it.
She read silently.
Then stopped halfway through.
Dana asked, “What does it say?”
Helen shook her head.
Claire did not demand it.
For once, something actually belonged only to her mother.
Helen folded the letter.
But she volunteered one line.
“He wrote that he loved the girl I was before my parents taught her she came second.”
Nobody spoke.
Helen swallowed.
“And he said he was afraid I had spent so much time trying to protect that girl that I stopped seeing the children standing in front of me.”
Evan climbed onto a chair.
“Grandma?”
She looked at him.
“Were you mad at me?”
Her face crumpled.
“No.”
“Then why did you take my money?”
Claire held her breath.
This was the moment.
Helen could apologize.
Or she could explain.
She chose the second.
“Because Emma needed things.”
Evan looked disappointed.
Not devastated.
Worse.
Disappointed.
Claire said quietly, “Mom.”
Helen realized it too late.
Evan slid off the chair.
“I want to go home.”
Claire gathered the telescope money and Robert’s notebook.
She left the bracelet with Helen.
At the doorway, Dana stopped her.
“I’m coming over tonight.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
At seven, Dana arrived without Emma.
She carried two grocery bags.
Inside were bank statements, bills and a shoebox.
“I went through everything Mom ever gave me after Matt left.”
Claire cleared the dining table.
For three hours, they compared dates from Helen’s blue notebook with Dana’s records.
Electricity.
Groceries.
A winter coat for Emma.
One overdue car payment.
A summer camp deposit.
Dana had unknowingly received $1,780 that came from money Helen had taken from grandchildren.
She wrote the number on a legal pad.
“I’ll pay it back.”
Claire shook her head.
“You can’t do that overnight.”
“No. But I can do it.”
“You didn’t steal it.”
“I still benefited.”
Claire looked at her sister.
The smirk from the birthday party felt very far away.
Dana rubbed her hands over her face.
“I laughed.”
Claire knew what she meant.
“I watched Mom take that money and I laughed because some ugly little part of me enjoyed watching your perfect life get inconvenienced.”
“My life isn’t perfect.”
“I know.”
“Why did you think it was?”
Dana gave a tired smile.
“Because you never call me crying.”
Claire looked at the table.
“I don’t call anyone crying.”
“That’s the problem.”
It was the closest they had come to an honest conversation in years.
Then Dana pushed the shoebox forward.
“This was in Emma’s closet.”
Claire frowned.
“What is it?”
“She asked me to bring it.”
Inside were envelopes.
Fourteen of them.
Each marked with a date.
Some had twenty-dollar bills.
Some fifty.
One had a hundred.
There were gift cards too.
Claire recognized Helen’s handwriting.
FOR GIRL THINGS.
“She didn’t spend it?” Claire asked.
“Not most of it.”
At the bottom was a folded piece of notebook paper.
A child’s handwriting.
Emma’s.
AGE 10.
Money Grandma gives me when she says I need more.
Underneath, Emma had written amounts.
Dana whispered, “She’s been keeping track too.”
Claire’s eyes burned.
Then she opened the final envelope.
Inside was seventy dollars.
And Evan’s name.
She turned it over.
May you like
On the back, Emma had written:
I think this one was supposed to be his.
