Hidden Things

Hidden Things


Do you ever have moments where you are sitting in a place - could be a coffee shop, or on your couch. At work or even in church? Moments where you are almost removed from your body and you can see yourself in motion through each and every decision and place you have ever been? And as you move through those moments, the invisible path of your life shapes as one foot is placed in front of the other…for the good and the bad; for the productive and the devastating? Sometimes the path is created by conscious decisions you make and others seem to be created by the life choices of other people and you’re just brought along for…

“Miss, are you ok?” 
The voice startles me out of my revere. I am suddenly aware of a warmth in my lap…my cappuccino has spilled out of the mug in my hand and all the way down the front of my shirt 
Before I can ask, there is a towel being handed to me. I look up into the most startling pair of grey eyes I have ever seen. 
“Tha- thank you” I manage to stutter, “I don’t know where I was” 
As I begin to wipe away what hasn’t soaked into my shirt already, I continue to profusely apologize “I am so sorry - I didn’t mean to make such a mess. I guess I…” 
I realize that I am now talking to fresh air as there is no one standing near me anymore. 
Why am I apologizing? I’m the one who has to walk around with a cappuccino stain on my front all day. I glance at my watch. Yup, too late to rush home and change. Maybe I can find a store on the way to the meeting.

I gather my things and leave a generous tip for the kindness and cleanup and step out from the quiet, air conditioned cafe into the warm, July sunshine and the overwhelming bustle of the downtown district. I glance at my watch again. The meeting wasn’t for another half hour but I had to walk 4 blocks and hopefully find a replacement for this coffee-stained shirt I was wearing.

“Clumsy idiot” I muttered to myself as I pressed the crosswalk sign and waited for the green walk signal.


There were no clothing stores en route to the meeting and as I rode in the elevator alone I stared at my reflection in the mirrored walls after I had freshened up my lipgloss. I liked my hair shoulder length - its natural wave allowed it to look wild on purpose. I didn’t have time for a gym these days, but didn’t mind the little “lumps and bumps” as my mother used to call them. At 32 years old I had decided to not give a toss about what my perceived value would be based on my build or looks…even if it came with an obnoxiously clumsy coffee stain on the front of my shirt right before a meeting like this.

“Clumsy idiot” I chided my reflection again and swung into the little black coat I had with me. It almost covered all of the stain and I made a mental note for how I should sit so that with any luck, it would all go unseen for the duration of the meeting.

The bright “ding!’ Of the elevator signalled my arrival on the 15th floor, and the doors opened to a typical commercial office scene. A large grey desk in the middle of the floor marked with the rather redundant word “Reception” was manned by two younger women - in their 20s I guessed. We exchanged greetings and the blonde one invited me to have a seat in a nearby conference room while she let the lawyer know I was waiting. 
The room was typical of any conference room as depicted in those fast-moving crime dramas on TV. Ceiling to floor glass walls afforded a quiet perusal of office life. The broad conference table looked expensive, but a chip in the finish on the corner indicated it was was merely a cheap replica of something more costly, as were the faux leather chairs which were placed neatly around it. A TV on the far wall was the only other furnishing in the room. I reached into my purse with a sigh and retrieved the letter.

It had been sitting on the threshold of my apartment when I got home from work. The mail usually got left in the boxes in the lobby so this was not usual. The plain manilla envelope had no markings on it save for my name and address neatly typed in typical font, as was the return address to the office in which I was now seated. 
“Welcome Miss Walter. It’s a pleasure to meet you - I am Lawrence Jones the attorney handling the estate. Please, sit down” 
He gestured to my seat as he pulled out a chair to my left and sat himself down as well. 
“Look Mr Jones - I-I don’t even know what this is about!” I stopped as abruptly as I had started because the look on his face indicated that had I been patient for just two seconds more, he would have begun to explain.

“Miss Walter, my late client was a private man and, I gather that you had no idea that he even existed. It appears that in the last will written, your father is named as the next of kin -er-“ he glanced at his notes and cleared his throat, “that is- the next of kin in terms of a friendship… So not biological, just in friendship. Do you understand?”. He paused and gazed over his grey-rimmed spectacles at me, probably gauging my response to this news.

I drew in my breath. “I think so yes. So what does that mean?” 
“Well, it appears that my client has left to you - the daughter of his deceased friend - the only item of any perceivable value… a house over in the Groves neighbourhood.” And with that he handed me another manilla envelope. This one had nothing written on it. 
As I began to open it, the lawyer stood up and cleared his throat again.

“Well, it has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance Miss Walter, but I must move on to another item of business. Please. Feel free to take your time here”. He stretched out his hand and I shook it. And then he was gone. 


In the envelope there was nothing but a photograph of two young men with the words “Fred and me” on the back of it, a key and a piece of paper torn out of a notebook with an address on it written in neat cursive. No doubt these were to allow me to find and gain access to the house. Mysterious house. My..house..?

I had to catch a cab back to my apartment, and change into something more comfortable. I glared at the coffee stained shirt before throwing it in the laundry basket. What an odd day it had been so far.

“And it’s not over is it?” I asked myself in the hall mirror before grabbing my purse and the envelope. 

I entered the address into my phone’s GPS and soon arrived at the house. It was one of those older builds, 2 storeys with an overgrown pathway leading up to the small porch on its front. The paint looked to have once been green, maybe blue? Hard to tell under the wear. It was clear that no one had paid any attention to its exterior in years.

I glanced up and down the street. A couple of kids were playing street hockey. There was no one else to be seen. I got my phone out and punched in 911. “Just incase” I muttered out loud, and then key in hand, I walked up to the house.

I am not sure what I expected to find, but as the front door creaked open I was met with the smell typical of a musty home being locked up for a significant amount of time. Dark but worn wood floors, wide baseboards in the same colour and the walls were that minty green or blue colour. I flipped a nearby light switch and was surprised to see them come on. Had someone been paying a power bill all these years? How many years was it anyway? 

At the bottom of the hallway where I stood, was a staircase going up, its rails the same brown wood as the floor. To my immediate left was a larger room, with windows on both walls - one showing the front yard and the other the side of the house. Thin curtains were pulled across both. There was a fireplace in the corner, no mantle or anything fancy. By the looks of it, it had never held a fire in all its life it was so clean.

This room opened up into what I assumed to be a dining room. There was no table but a large and obnoxious chandelier hung in the centre of the ceiling. There was another window in the wall on the side of the house. I looked back over the rooms I had just been through and realized, there was no furniture to be seen in any of them. 
“Very generous “everything in it” addendum to that will Mister” I said out loud and chuckled.

On the end of the dining room was the kitchen. Small and narrow with painted white cupboards and chipped subway tile backsplash. An old fridge stood on a wall next to a door which led to the back yard. There was no stove. Some of the cupboards were not fully closed so I began to close them and as I did so, I noticed something on a second shelf. I reached up and felt it was paper. More like a book.

A little black book. I turned it over in my hand. It wasn't a spiral notebook like you would find in a grocery store. It had a soft cover - looked like leather but likely wasn't. Its pages were yellow - on purpose, not from age. I don't know why I smelt it - probably caught up in the tension of the moment - and promptly broke that tension with a violent sneeze. It was after all, still quite dusty.

Leaning against the counter I opened it up. Its pages were similar to the page that was in the envelope with the house address on it. The front page held a curious simple phrase “Let the truth be secret no more.”

As I turned the pages I found myself taken in a tale that could only be described as incredible. The writer was the friend of my father that the lawyer had mentioned. The photograph had referenced Fred (my father) and I assumed that this notebook had been penned by whomever the other guy was that was with him. 
“The truck was on its side when we got there. There was a man lying face up on the dirt, blood dried on his forehead where he had suffered a head injury. He was unresponsive to our attempts to help him. As I was looking down the road for another vehicle or person to help, Fred yelled for my attention near the truck. There was a dirty white canvas bag. We opened it and I dropped it like a hot potato. It was full of money! Cash money! More than either of us had ever seen before. We could hear sirens in the distance and looked at each other, a single thought passing between us. And then the bag was on Freds back and we were running through the bush, taking a short cut back to our own car. We could see the tail lights of the cop cars round the bend toward where the accident was as we drove away in the opposite direction…”

What was I reading? A confession? 
I put my purse down and jumped up to sit on the kitchen counter before continuing to read.

The story went on to tell of how my father and his friend spent the next weeks in fear that someone had seen them with the bag - especially when it turned out that the man who had it had in fact robbed a local business of the cash. They considered turning it in, but then thought about how they could change their lives with it. 
They had big dreams for travel, opening up their own business, building new homes and making something of themselves in the world, “..But as the years went on, there never seemed to be a good time to bring the bag out into the light and use its contents. And then Fred was taken from us. Too soon and too quickly. Hit and run they had said”. There was an old newspaper clipping taped on the page. As I lay it flat to read it, I gasped and then closed my eyes as the cold reality that had been my life when I was ten years old played over in my minds eye…

I turned the page in the little notebook.


“His funeral was huge - I never knew Fred knew so many folk. But it made sense that there would be so many who seemed genuinely sad that he was gone. Fred was like that with people - made them comfortable and happy when he was around. Me, not so much. 
And then I noticed her standing close to her mother. Her white bowed pony tails a stark contrast against the black coats, suits and dresses that pressed in beside her.

I gasped again. That was me! He had been at my dads funeral! A little weird to realise that someone had been watching ME that whole time.

“I decided then that she would have it. It didn’t seem right to spend it alone, and she would need it one day with no daddy to leave her a thing. And so, dear Jessica”. 

My heart skipped a beat as I read my name in his writing. This was a message just for me! 

“I am sorry we never could meet. Your father insisted that we keep our friendship to ourselves and not tell anyone about us. For you see, we were not allowed to be more than friends in the way that we needed to be. As you have grown up the world has changed and I know he would have been so very glad to tell you the truth about who he was. I think your mother knew, and still loved him regardless. You were blessed with two incredible people for parents. Although your father managed to come to terms with the dichotomy of who he was, I never could and so have no family of my own. At any rate, if you’re reading this, then I have also gone to whatever lies beyond this life. The house was the easiest way to package this letter as I knew you would be faithful in attending to it, in spite of its state of disrepair. I made sure to have the otherwise useless contents removed so that you wouldn’t have to deal with sorting and disposing of them. 

Please live a happy and fulfilled life, and I hope you will find as pure a love and friendship one day as I had found in Fred. 

Sincerely yours, 
James Miller. 

And then there was a number. A bank account number…