Family Lessons

Alice peeled back the packing tape, strips of the cardboard box it had sealed for so long coming loose along its adhesive. Her throat closed as she pulled the flaps open and reached inside. She didn’t want to do this. She wasn’t ready. It had only been six days. But if she didn’t go through Nana’s attic and get things cleared, then her mother would have to, and Alice didn’t want anything to add to her mother’s grief.

This was the fourth box she had opened, sifting and sorting the contents into piles based upon some idea of worth or necessity: keep or donate; save or toss. The items within had all been fairly similar: tablecloths, clothes, books. Items that her Nana already owned in such abundance that these had been relegated to the attic, unable to be parted with but unable to use.

Alice lifted out lace doilies and crocheted blankets. Near the bottom and tucked between the layers was a manila envelope, and she tilted her head and reached for it, opening the flap. Inside was a small, black journal – Alice had never known her grandmother to keep a journal, the woman didn’t have any secrets to hide within a diary’s pages. She debated looking inside, knowing she should respect the woman’s privacy but also desperate to be near her; in the end, grief won out over guilt. But both emotions soon vanished, as she looked down at the first page and had no idea what to make of anything written there. It was a list of numbers and abbreviations. She turned the pages of the journal but each one was like that; scribbled and scrawled with inexplicable content. At the bottom of the last page was written:

“Make-up case, top shelf, linen closet”

Curiosity took the place of sadness, and Alice was grateful for the temporary relief. She stood and went downstairs to the main floor, heading for the closet next to her grandmother’s bedroom. She wondered if there would still be a make-up case there, and then she wondered what was inside of the case. But her brain wasn’t imaginative, it was logical, and all she could come up with was simply make-up.

She opened the closet door and peered inside at the towels and sheets, the spare blankets for when the grandkids visited, the tablecloths not banished to the attic, the odds and ends on every shelf. She was tall, standing just under 5’10”, and on her tiptoes she was able to reach the middle of the top shelf and fumble around with her fingers. She felt something hard, leather in texture, and she tried to get a purchase on it but couldn’t quite reach. Fetching a step ladder from the kitchen, Alice retrieved the rectangular case, old, brown leather worn but not cracked, its brass latch still shining. She carried it back to the kitchen table, shocked at how heavy it was, and set it down before getting herself a glass of water. She wanted to prolong this; once it was open and she saw the innocuous contents, the reprieve would be over and back to her grief she’d go. Just a few more moments without the heartache, that was all she wanted.

She heard the front door open and close, and she stepped out of the kitchen and into the hall, seeing her mother walk slowly towards her.

“You weren’t supposed to be here, today,” Alice said gently.

Her mother sighed wearily, the lines in her face deeper than usual. “I know. I just…I just need to be, I think.” She attempted a smile without quite succeeding.

“Well, you’re just in time for some excitement,” Alice said, lifting her voice and attempting the same. “Found something weird in the attic – an old journal, and the only thing that made sense was a note about a make-up case in the closet, so…” She looked over her shoulder, gesturing towards the table, but when she turned back around she saw her mother’s eyes were wide.

“Mom?”

“Oh my God, you found it!” Her mother rushed past her, grief and age suspended, and Alice turned and hurried to follow. “It was in a closet?” She exclaimed, turning to look at her daughter as she placed her hands on the old, worn leather.

“The linen closet. The book said ‘make-up case, top shelf, linen closet’. That book was so weird, had a bunch of times and things scribbled in it. Mom, what’s in the case? Why is this such a big deal?”

Her mother started laughing, quietly at first, but the pain of losing her own mother made the need for release so acute that the quiet laughter bubbled and grew, turning into deep belly laughs and hysterical giggling, as Alice looked on with a mixture of shock and mild concern. When her mother finally calmed down, wiping tears from her eyes, she took a long breath and reached out to place a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

“Alice, my darling. Open the case.”

Suddenly Alice wasn’t sure she wanted to; she was now fairly certain that it did not contain make-up. But she reached for the latch and pressed the button there, startling a bit as the lid snapped open. Sucking in a lungful of air, Alice reeled back as she saw the contents.

“That’s – that’s – Mom, that’s money!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Like – oh my God, a lot of money!”

“Yes, dear.”

“What is that? Is that her nest egg or something? Why didn’t she keep this in a bank?”

“Well, I suppose that would be because she robbed it from banks, so it must have seemed a little off, to her, to put it back into one.”

Alice whirled around and stared at her mother, her mouth gaping open. “She – I’m sorry, what now? You didn’t – she wasn’t – what?”

Her Mom shook her head with a smile, and sat down at the table, motioning for Alice to do the same. “You’ll want to sit for this, sweetheart.” She reached for the case and pulled it close to her, running her fingers over the lines and edges with a tender smile and tears in her eyes, more concerned with the case and the memory of the woman who had owned it than she was with the contents within.

“It was never a lot from the same one,” she began. “She’d take a thousand from this one and a thousand from that one – sometimes less than that. The book you found – those were her notes on the banks. Different banks, different cities, over different years – Lord, one time we drove all the way to Idaho for it. Spent a week there so she could learn the place.”

“’We’?!”

“I was…I guess her getaway driver. God, that makes it sound much more exciting than it really was. Just one old woman driving an even older woman, but with haste.”

“You – what?! Why? When? Oh my God, Mom, I can’t even…”

“Oh, honey, relax. Take a deep breath.”

“Relax? You’re literally telling me my grandmother was a bank robber and you were her accomplice.”

“Your grandmother was a little old lady who couldn’t live off of her dead husband’s meager social security, couldn’t afford to feed herself well and was only able to stay afloat for as long as she did because this house was fully paid off and she’d always been good at saving. She hit desperation, Alice. And your grandmother will always find a solution to a problem. You know that. Even if it’s…an illegal one. Technically.”

“Technically?”

“Well, I mean…”

“How did she never get caught?!”

“Probably a little bit due to the fact that we drove all over the place so they were never close together, and a little bit due to the fact that the amounts were so small, and a lot due to luck.”

“Did she – oh my God, Mom, tell me she didn’t use a gun.”

“Oh Lord, no.”

“Thank God.”

“The note she’d slide to the teller said, ‘I’m so sorry, dear, but I need a thousand dollars and my son is outside with a gun’. Or something to that effect – I don’t know, I never actually saw the notes, she just told me what was on them. I think that was it; hard to remember. But she, herself, never used one.”

“She just threatened the use of one! Which is still awful!”

“Alice, come on, how do you expect a teller to take an old lady seriously who comes up to the window and says she’s there to steal a thousand dollars? They would just pat her on the head and call someone to report a dementia case.”

“I can’t believe this – and I can’t believe you’re okay with this! That you helped.”

Her mother sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Alice, even when my Dad was alive, he wasn’t here. And when he was here, he was horrible. It’s…it’s always been me and Mom,” she said, her voice cracking as she ran her finger over the edge of the case again. “Always. Just me and her. Against the world.” She looked over at her daughter as a tear slid down her cheek. “I would have done anything in the world for her, and with her. And we didn’t have a lot of money, your Dad and I, or I would have helped. Can you imagine what it’s like to watch your mother crying because she doesn’t know how she’ll keep the heat on? I don’t know, maybe you’re right – maybe it was horrible, and maybe we’ll go to hell. But you know something? I don’t think I really care.”

Alice looked at the case and then back at her mother, several times. “We have to give it back.”

Her mother laughed. “Good luck with that.”

“Huh?”

“You want to call over three dozen banks and tell them that you have a sum of money that might or might not equal a thousand dollars that was stolen from them sometime within the years of 1998 to 2015? Be my guest. My guess is they won’t have the slightest clue what to do with you, and you’ll get bounced from person to person until you finally give up or they just hang up on you.”

“But…”

“Alice, morality is all well and good, but sometimes you just have to be human.” Her mother slowly got to her feet, her age making her groan. “I’m going to make some lunch. Want a sandwich?”

“No I don’t want a sandwich!” Alice said, her eyes wide. She looked back at the case. “Mom, this is…I can’t process this.”

“You will. You’ll process it, eventually. You have so much of your father in you, Alice – so cerebral, logical, pragmatic. But he was able to take it in, and so will you, in time.”

“Dad knows?!”

“Of course – I don’t keep things from him, that would be a terrible thing to do in a marriage.”

“So secret-keeping is bad, but bank robbing is okay.”

“There, now you’re getting the hang of it,” her mother smiled, as she went into the kitchen.

Alice stared into the case for a long while at the stacks of bills. “There has to be – God, how much is in here, Mom?”

“Not quite sure. Nana used what she needed to, and socked the rest away in there. Take it – pay off your student loans. Go on a vacation. She would want you to have it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can.” Her mother walked back, carrying a plate with two turkey sandwiches. She put the plate down on the table between them and sat. “Don’t think of it as ill-gotten gains.”

“Then how am I supposed to think of it?”

Her mother took one of the sandwiches and motioned at the other one, indicating Alice should eat it. “A lesson.”

“In what?”

“Never underestimate an old lady.” She raised one eyebrow pointedly and triumphantly took a bite of her sandwich.