His Memory, Her Promise

His home had been ransacked by his children. His generous, giving nature had been abused all his life, and now in death. He had been too honest and trusting of others; a byproduct of his kind and genial spirit.

Bickering between his children had persisted for several weeks after his passing. The courts would have to intervene in some instances, concerning questionable claims made on a few of his belongings, but as for the rest of the house's contents, his children had been certain to search every inch of it in hopes to find something of merit, but couldn’t.

They had never cared for their foreign and eccentric father. And they did not attribute value to things the way he did. For them, only money had value. Their family heirlooms (which he had saved in hopes they would cherish them) had been relegated to the trash can. And the items which had been appraised to have meager value were auctioned off to the dismay of his small granddaughter, who, being as young as she was, had no say in the matter.

As for the house, it had been the subject of unrelenting quarrels in probate court amongst his children for several months. His granddaughter, however, saw it for what it was: the last home of her grandfather, who had cared for her and educated her in the most unorthodox of ways—at least according to her father, who disapproved of him and his behavior.

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She was riding along on the city bus. Her bicycle strapped to the front. When she arrived at the bus stop closest to her grandpa’s old home, she scooped up her backpack and began to make her way to the buses' exit.

“Where are you going, child?” asked the bus driver, looking over at her as she exited the bus. She was an older black woman, who had been a bus driver for the city, twenty-five years and counting, and soon would be retiring (A fact she repeated every day, with great enthusiasm, to anyone who would listen).

“I’m off to my grandpa’s,” said the girl. She noticed the bus driver had taken an interest in her since she had entered the bus.

The driver wrenched herself forward in her seat and scanned the bus stop. No one was waiting for the girl.

“He’s not here to pick you up from the stop?” asked the driver.

“He passed away,” answered the girl. “You may have known him. He used to ride the bus.”

He had never obtained his driver’s license in America, and furthermore, never needed to buy a car. And he liked it that way, because he liked to talk to the people on the bus, and was amused they could never understand what he said because his accent was so thick. And he liked to ride his bicycle, and experience the passing days of life through his own eyes, and not through a windshield, isolated from others. And he liked to feel the wind on his face, and not from the air conditioning. And he liked to smile at the people who passed him by, where ever he walked, with his white bushy mustache, and twinkly dark brown eyes.

But sometimes he was deeply miserable, because he was often lonely, as a consequence, and wanted to be understood when he spoke. And after his wife had died, he had no one to speak to, not even his children, who were estranged from him.

The driver got up from her seat and followed the girl outside the bus. It was now late in the afternoon, about dusk, and soon the sun would set. “I’m sorry to hear that, baby,” said the driver. “Are you going to his house for a funeral dinner? Is your family going to be there?”

“No, mam, he died earlier this year.”

The driver was unsure of what to make of the girl’s plans, and resolved, with immense hesitancy, to let her go off by herself.

“Would you like help with your bike?” asked the driver, gesturing toward the bicycle strapped to the front of the bus.

“Yes, mam,” said the girl.

“What was his name?” asked the driver, unfastening her bicycle from the front of the bus.

“His name was Geppetto,” said the girl. “...Like from Pinocchio.”

The bus driver’s face lit up with a large, wide smile. “Oh, yes...Mr. Collodi. He was the kindest man on the bus, always sharing with people about his adventures.”

The girl smiled. “That’s him.”

Not one of his children had shared his ambitions; not even his faith. However, one strand of curiosity survived a generation in his family: his granddaughter, who spoke enough Italian for him to understand her, and he, being able to speak enough English for her to understand him, achieved sufficient communication. And because they were so much alike, and shared such a curious appetite for the world, their bond was strengthened all the more.

“Well, I’m sorry again to hear about him passing, honey. He hadn’t been on the bus for a while. I feared something happened to him.”

“He was ninety-six,” said the girl.

“A nice long life for a great man,” said the driver. “Few men are as great as your grandpa.” And ain’t that the truth, she murmured under her breath.

The driver lifted the bicycle off the bus and set it on the pavement.

“You’re on your own adventure, then?”

“Yes, mam.”

“Well, I’ll be back around to this stop one more time, in an hour.”

The driver paused, thinking for a moment.

“That reminds me,” said the driver. “I think it was your grandpa who left something behind, a while ago. Let me check my compartment.”

The driver climbed back into the bus and began rummaging in one of the compartments near the door. The girl stood in wonderment. What could her grandpa have left behind?

“It’s in here somewhere—AH!—here it is!” declared the driver.

The driver came out from the bus and handed the girl a small black notebook, with several large rubber bands around it. The girl marveled at it. Of all the possessions her grandpa could have left behind, a notebook!

The girl slid the rubber bands off, which were very old and had almost lost their elasticity. She opened the notebook and inside was her grandfather’s signature, scrawled in his native Italian. She leafed through the notebook. Every page was blank until she reached the last page:

To Sara Collodi, my granddaughter...

A puzzle for you:

La Soffitta

(...Attic, she whispered).

The Lord blesses those who pray the rosary...

...And look high above when approaching his holy number.

Below was a figure he had drawn:

<><><><><><><>

Love,

Nonno

The girl read the note several times, with tears streaming down her face, then looked up at the driver.

The driver hugged the girl. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t talk to nobody. Keep an eye out.”

The driver went back to the bus. The door shut. The air-brakes made a loud tss sound, and away it went.

The girl stood for a moment, composing herself, holding tightly to her handlebars, and then, after placing the notebook into her backpack, thrust herself up onto her bicycle—a size too large for her—and began to pedal toward her grandpa’s old home.

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It was as she remembered it: old and graceful, and still very much so, after yet another month of its hopeless vacancy. She stood upright from her bicycle; her tiptoes just able to touch the ground on either side. The pavement was cracked, and weeds grew all throughout it. The house had not been maintained for some time, and that didn’t include the additional time her grandpa had neglected it, before his death.

She stood outside the iron front gate of the old home, which bore a chain and lock, and peered lovingly at it. It was a charming, gable-front home, with a large front porch, which had twenty-one balusters on either side of the staircase (which she counted slowly with her finger).

Around the perimeter of the house were long walls of brick lattice which she followed towards the back of the home until she found the small opening, which being as small as she was, could fit through. Now on the other side of the lattice, she could see the house up close. It stood as it always had: solemn and friendly.

She approached an old tree in the backyard and dug into the grass in front of it until she uncovered a tiny green majolica box. Inside was a key to the backdoor.

Once inside the house, she stood for a moment and sobbed. The house was empty. Her grandpa was not there. In some fleeting, irrational thought, she had hoped he would be inside waiting for her.

She took out the notebook and began to study the note again. Attic, she said aloud. But where was his attic? She roamed around the vacant house, looking up at the ceiling, but she couldn’t find it. Garage, she shouted! As she entered the garage, she found a drawstring hanging from the ceiling. She pulled it and down came the attic hatch, along with mounds of dust. She lowered the stairs and began to climb up them. At the top, she peered around in the dark. His attic was a scary place, especially with him not here with her. She climbed up into it, and opened her backpack, fumbling around in it until she found her flashlight. She flicked it on and pointed it around the room. Nothing. The attic had been cleared completely. What did he want me to find up here? She thought.

She looked back at the notebook: ...those who pray the rosary.

She then studied the figure he had drawn:

<><><><><><><>

Prayer beads! She had grown accustomed to her grandpa’s strange diagrams.

She then looked around the attic for a set of prayer beads but could find none.

She looked at the note again, noticing that he had drawn seven beads in the figure. Then she looked around the room for anything that could be counted to seven.

The beams! She said aloud.

She noticed that on each beam were small carvings in his handwriting, numbered one through seven.

She searched in the dark with her flashlight, until she found the beam with the number seven on it. The Lord’s holy number, she thought. Then she looked upwards with her flashlight. She could see a set of wooden beads, high up, and wrapped around the bottom chord of a roof truss.

She reached as high as she could and tugged at the beads. One end of the strand came tumbling down, with the other end still attached to something. She tugged on the strand again and down came a coffee container. She was able to catch it as it fell.

She sat on the attic floor and with the flashlight pointed at the coffee can, opened it, and to her amazement, it was full of money ($20,000) and a small note:

For Sara Collodi,

...My beautiful and talented granddaughter. Time spent with you was never wasted. I wait and watch from heaven.

Love,

Nonno

P.S. ...Promise me you will hide all of it, till you are older.

She sat and sobbed for a moment, but then remembering the bus would return soon, she placed the coffee can into her backpack and made her way down the attic, out of the house, and pedaled back to the bus stop.

She would keep his memory

and her promise

forever.