Black Book

Uncle Tommy was a lifelong pal. We spent many Sunday afternoons on outings to the park to watch the ducks, the people, and to catch up on the week’s events. As well, we would frequent neighbors’ houses, restaurants, go on shopping adventures, see movies, and just hang out until all he had the strength left to do was sit in his easy chair and visit. Maybe play a game of cards with me, talk a little, but mostly listen. Toward the end, he mostly just listened.

He covered himself in an old throw, made of yellow and brown crocheted granny squares stitched together. He had much more comfortable blankets in the old house, but he wasn’t much for change. I’m sure if Aunt Barb were still around, there’d be starch in old Tommy’s button down pajama sets and he’d wear them happily. As it was, his pajamas looked comfortably wrinkled and freshly slept in on most of what I refer to as “near the end” visits. It was tough watching him grow feeble in the body, but I still knew him to be sharp in the mind still. He knew who and what I was talking about when I talked about Mike and the kids. He reminisced with me about days gone by and never skipped a beat. The time when Aunt Barb busted me with cigarettes and Uncle Tommy tried to save my skin and said they were his, ha! She simply rolled her eyes; nothing could ever spoil Sunday tradition with my Aunt and Uncle. They loved each other so much. Now that I’m grown, sometimes Mike and the kids will join us for dinner, partaking in, or intruding on depending on your point of view, our lifelong tradition. Sometimes it would be the kids and me for a visit, but there I was without fail, every Sunday. They had kids of their own of course, and sometimes they’d be around, but we never counted on it if you catch my drift.

Near the end, it was really just me and Uncle Tommy. I noticed he was holding a little black book in his lap one Sunday. It was clearly very old, I’m not even sure I could find a little black book like that anymore. You know the kind, the little black phone books that guys could slip into their back pockets with ease. He wasn’t simply holding it either, he was fidgeting with it nonstop; rubbing it’s exterior to the point that I could smell the old leather, running his fingers along it’s outer edge as he turned it over and over again. Aunt Barb was the love of his life and his wife for 52 years, for Uncle Tommy to have saved his black book full of “chick’s numbers” all this time seemed odd. Was he remembering an old flame fondly? Something certainly had him flustered.

“What ‘cha doing with the phone book, Uncle Tommy? Lookin’ for a date?” I asked with a sideways grin.

“Ha, ha,” he said, handing me the book. “Here, smartass. Put this away in that drawer and grab the deck of cards off the side table over there and let’s get to it.” He effectively let me know the subject of the book was closed with the drawer it was now in and our running game of choice, Gin Rummy, began. He was killing me. That was our last Sunday together.

“…and to my beloved niece, Sarah May Love, I leave my little black book. Sarah, I’ve left you many messages of wisdom that old age have taught me; learn from my mistakes, will you? This book holds much for you when you unlock the key. Anything left of my estate shall be donated to the local women’s and children’s shelter…” It was months after Uncle Tommy’s death. Months past sitting in church at his funeral looking around at a sparse crowd of what was left of his old friends and his family, standing in the cold rain watching him sink into the ground and I had all but tuned out everything the lawyer was saying at this “mandatory” will reading when I heard “niece” and my name and my ears perked up. Aunt Barb and Uncle Tommy didn’t have a lot, not that I was aware of. Considering they had 3 children of their own, all as greedy and grumpy and bears that just woke up in the spring, I was sure anything of value or sentiment would go to them. So, I was now the owner of the mysterious black book, hmm?

“Sarah, would you mind hanging back a moment?” Mr. Coffman, my uncle’s attorney, asked me as the small group began filing out of his office. I sat back down. When the rest of the family was gone, Mr. Coffman walked around his desk and closed the door. When he sat back down, he reached across the desk and handed me the book. After a moment passed he asked, “Aren’t you going to open it?”

I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure I wanted to open it. Not now, maybe never. For 45 years of my life I spent at least one day a week with my uncle, often more, and this book that I saw in his hands for two minutes along with my memories, are all that I have left of him. I opened the book.

He was right. Inside, there were many quotes and things written out to me. Dear Sarah, Always be yourself, and many others. In between these quotes, on various pages, he used the book as a ledger to record deposits. All in, the deposits totaled $20,000.00. I looked up at Mr. Coffman, confused.

“Your uncle loved you very much, and he always worried so much about you. He wanted to give you money outright many times, or leave it to you outright, but he knew all too well the battles you’d face with his children and hoped that you might avoid so much distaste, so he deposited it in a numbered account that only you can access. No one else need ever know he left it to you or that you even have it. Use it as you like, when you like, or save it.”

I stopped at the cemetery on my way home and paid my respects, said a proper thank you to Uncle Tommy, then I sat in my own recliner curled up with a blanket. I held the black book close to my chest and cried. I cried until my eyes were slits that I could barely see through, the salt on my face started to dry, and everything above my neck felt twice its normal size. Then I slept until I could see, and then I set to figuring out the key in my new little black book.