Grandma's Girl.

The humidity in the office was almost unbearable. The dumpy little lawyer leaned back in his chair as he fanned himself with a document labelled ‘Confidential’. Even in a light floral dress, sweat dripped down Agnes’ neck as she sat on the opposite him. Her legs stuck uncomfortably to the fake leather chair.

‘Odd weather we’re having, ey?’ the lawyer panted as he struggled to fan himself. Agnes politely nodded in agreement, even though hot weather in summer was as surprising as water being wet. The lawyer took Agnes’ nod as a sign. ‘Let’s get started then,’ he huffed as he reached down into his desk drawer. He placed a small, brown package onto the desk. The paper wrapping showed age, the corners were all slightly ripped as black edges poked from beneath. There was writing on top of the package, but Agnes couldn’t make it out. 'Now, can you please confirm your full name and date of birth?' asked the lawyer in laboured breaths.

Agnes cleared her throat, 'Agnes Eloise Wright, February 17th, 2000.' The lawyer looked down closer at the writing on the package and nodded.

'Agnes, a bit of an old fashioned name now, isn’t it?' he stated, peeked back up at her. The sweat from his forehead was dangerously close to falling down onto the package.

'I’m named after my grandma.' Agnes said quickly. A grandma she couldn’t remember, but she didn’t want to mention that. Not when the writing on the package was in danger of being smudged by this man’s forehead drippings.

'Ah, right. That’s the reason why we’re here today.’ He sat back and lifted up the package into his hand, a splodge of sweat narrowly missed and hit the desk instead. ‘Sadly, we don’t know the exact instructions that were to accompany this.’ He twisted the package over in his hands, as if some secret was suddenly going to reveal itself. ‘Your grandmother’s lawyer has left the firm.' He added quickly, 'God rest his soul.' He sighed, ‘The only thing we knew was to give it to you on your 21st birthday.' He passed over the package and Agnes, who turned it over to read it.

Happy 21st Birthday Agnes Eloise Wright!

“Why should things be easy to understand?”

- Thomas Pynchon

---

'Mum! What was grandma like?' Agnes yelled from the couch. The package had contained a little black book. It contained countless photos of her as a baby with her grandmother. Little notes captioned the photos and drawings that looked like house plans. Agnes struggled to read her grandmother’s handwriting. The squiggly tight lines were almost impossible to decipher. It was like her grandmother had written in code.

Agnes turned to see her mother emerge from the kitchen. She wore her teddy-bear pyjamas and held two mugs of tea. Her mother paused to think about the question. She answered, 'Weird.'

Agnes scrunched up her face, ‘Hmph.’ She turned back to the book.

Agnes’ mother drifted over and sat down next to her on the couch. ‘Not weird in a bad way. Weird in a wonderful way.’ She reassured Agnes as she handed over the mug of steaming black tea. 'I wouldn’t have named you after her if she was a bad type of weird.'

'I thought you named me after her because you’ve never had an original thought in your life!' joked Agnes.

Her mother paused for thought again, 'That too.' Agnes sighed, her mother put down her tea and took the book in her hand and flipped through the pages. “Your grandma always loved taking photos of you in the most random places.’ she murmured. She stopped on a page and laughed, ‘Look, she even took pictures of you inside the bank.’ She tutted, ‘Wouldn’t be able to do that now…’

‘But what does this even mean?’ Agnes asked as she passed the wrapping with the quote on it.

Her mother took her third moment to think for the evening and muttered, 'She always loved a good puzzle.'

Agnes perked up. 'You think this book is some big puzzle?'

Her mother shrugged and sighed, 'Maybe. I’ve never been good at puzzles.’ Her eyes glazed over for a moment. ‘That was always her thing. Everything about her must’ve skipped a generation.' She exhaled sadly.

'Mum…' Agnes said as she reached over her mother.

Her mother snapped out of her memory and chuckled, ‘I’m fabulous in a completely different way.’ She winked. ‘You don’t need to worry about me, baby.' Her mother flipped through more pages. Pictures of Agnes and her grandma in more random locations and moments; buying a secondhand car, playing around with power tools in a garage, and finally a picture of them sitting on a bench in front of an old gumtree. ‘Listen sweetie, your grandma found out she was sick when it was too late.’ She handed the book back to Agnes. ‘I think she just hoped you might remember at least one of these moments together.’

‘So, what should I do?’ asked Agnes.

‘Maybe revisit some of the places in the pictures?’ her mother sipped her tea. ‘You never know, you could remember something.’

---

Agnes first visited the bank, since it was the easiest to identify. It was an older building, grand stone columns, gleaming white and towering over the filthy stairs that led towards the entrance. New modern plastic security cameras and sensors clashed against the old stone and heavy metal double-doors. Agnes flipped to the page with the picture of her and her grandma at the bank. She squinted her eyes as she tried to read the caption. A smiley-face sticker bullet-pointed the sentence of tight cursive writing.

‘Good one, Grandma.’ moaned Agnes. She pulled out her phone to find a Latin translator app and typed in her grandma’s words. The translation took Agnes by surprise. She looked around and saw a cafe across the street, and headed towards it. This called for a strong coffee and a lot of web-searching.

---

Agnes didn’t have any luck with the photos or other captions in the book, even after a coffee. The secondhand car dealership had been bulldozed years ago, the caption was just Incognito. Another photo had been at an ice cream shop that was now an upscale sushi restaurant. The playground they had visited together had been upgraded with newer, safer equipment. More like boring equipment, Agnes lamented. The old red brick house her grandma rented had been knocked down. The photo had been captioned Congue domus. The house had been replaced by dull grey apartments with hideous neon green highlights. Agnes walked down the driveway past the ugly apartments to see if the garage had survived. She stopped when she noticed an old gate in the fence. Something about it was familiar. She looked over the rusted gate and saw an old path flowing down the hill. The gate attacked Agnes’ ears with a loud screech as she pulled it open. She wandered down the old path, weeds and long grass gently scratched at her legs down the narrow stony path. Agnes saw something that caused her to hurry down the hill faster, her brown hair fluttered in the breeze. The path ended at a small river embankment. Just away from the edge under the tree, was an old park bench. Agnes slowly walked over and sat on the aged wooden seat and opened the book. She found the photo of her grandma sitting on a freshly made bench, with a baby Agnes on her knee. Agnes wouldn’t have been much older than two years-old when the photo was taken. Agnes looked like a doll in denim overalls and little dinosaur shoes, topped with a tuft of silky brown hair in the middle of a giggling fit. Agnes’ grandma looked like an older reflection of herself; long copper hair, deep brown eyes, and a love of floral dresses. Though, her grandma had a hint of mischief within in her smile. Written on the photo, underneath the bench next to her grandma’s feet was more, barely legible writing, dotted with hearts.

‘Here lies the truth,’ stated Agnes. What truth? she asked herself. Agnes looked over the river into the lush green gumtree forest before she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could hear the river as it gently trickled and the croak of the gumtree in the wind. Agnes felt her hair snag on something behind her. She turned to see a metal plaque, green corrosion slowly edging towards the centre text.

For my granddaughter.

In loving memory of Agnes Eloise Wright.

1943-2002

‘Oh,’ gasped Agnes. ‘I can see why you came here,’ she said aloud, she wiped a tear away. ‘It would’ve been a lovely place to spend time together,’ she sniffed. Her love must be her truth, she thought. Agnes smiled down back at the picture, before she whipped it up to her face for a closer look. ‘That can’t be right,’ Agnes exclaimed. Her smile dropped. The plaque was already there next to her grandma on the bench. Grandma knew she was going to die, but why did she have the plaque already engraved? Agnes’ hand slapped herself in the forehead, Grandma didn’t even pass away in 2002, she died in 2003. Agnes scrutinised at the photo again, there was something different about it. She flipped back to the picture of her at the bank. Her grandmother’s handwriting was under the photo. She flicked to another photo, again, the writing was under the photo. Agnes turned back to the photo at the bench. Her grandmother’s writing was on the photo itself, not a caption like the others. ‘Here lies the truth.’ Agnes repeated again. She looked around to make sure she wasn’t being watched and kneeled down from the bench to look underneath. It was nothing but grass and mud, Agnes got up to leave when she noticed something near the right back leg. Something you wouldn't have noticed unless you looked properly. Agnes dug away the mud with her fingers, the object seemed to be a handle. She pulled hard on it and fell backwards into the dirt, an old garden trowel lay clutched in her hand.

Agnes dug as fast as she could. The rusted trowel didn’t last long and snapped in half, so she started using her hands. Dirt and rust dulled her once clean blue dress, but she didn’t care. The sun burnt her neck and she cleared mud away, handful by handful. She reached down again and hit something hard. It looked like a box. Agnes dug even faster, ignoring the pain from the small cuts and broken nails. Her fingers gouged the mud around the metal box, upheaving it from its grave. Her hands shook as she tried to pry the lid off. The lid didn’t budge; it was rusted shut. Frustrated, Agnes smacked the corner of the box against the bench and it burst open. Bundles of cash and loose notes exploded from the box and littered the ground. The shock subsided quickly as the wind blew some of the loose notes away. She hurriedly gathered everything together and counted it. Almost $20,000. Where did grandma get this money? She stuffed the money back into the decrepit, dented box. Agnes saw a flicker at the corner of her eye next to the river. A piece of paper had fluttered inches away from the water. Agnes scampered over and snatched the paper and flipped it over. Her grandmother’s tight handwriting was neatly scrawled across the page.

Here’s your cut, my little partner in crime. Thank you for being the best cover for a stakeout a grandma could ask for.