The Chest

I slept with a small wooden chest, with corroded steel ends, under my bed. This had belonged to my paternal grandfather who died while I was very young. I had been told that he gave me this chest to keep my most precious possessions; just as he had done all his life.

I remember keeping my most precious relics in it every night before I go to sleep. My cars and plastic soldiers, which I played with all day. Some curious rock found on the way from school to my house; some drawing I was proud of. I thought of my grandfather as I put those pieces away for the night and took them out in the morning. So, day after day, following a kind of ritual.

Sometime later the dreams began. He and I would visit the beach and the pier; walking and running on the sand. He was buying me some popcorn from a little wagon. I always asked for strawberry red syrup. Then we would walk around chatting and laughing while eating.

The end of those dreams was always the same. My grandfather disappearing from my side. With only me left at the scene, as if he'd never been there. In one moment, believing him by my side walking beside me; in the next, looking and noticing his absence. Realizing that he was no longer by my side made me desperate. The beach, until a moment ago calm between the cooing of the waves and the warm breeze, was then the scene of a storm to come. When the wind is hard and cold, the sky darkens and the waves break with fury.

I was beginning to run scared by the thunder, the strength of the wind and the rough sea. I saw the pier in the distance and ran there to protect myself but the gale was dragging me out into the raging sea. Horror was taking hold of me and I woke up suddenly, drenched in sweat and screaming. Not even in my dreams could I have his presence. When I woke up, I shouted for him, but he was no longer there and the dream was over.

My parents would come to my room and I would tell them, once again, that I had dreamt about him. They looked at each other sadly, they knew my story: it was always the same. They wondered why I had the same dream every night with no answer. Since the chest had come into my hands I had not stopped asking about my grandfather. Curiosity consumed me, I had to find out everything about it. My dad told me that his father had kept some memories of his youth in the chest without knowing how to explain them to me. I was becoming more and more obsessed with wondering what he would have kept in there.

I imagined him keeping medals won in distant lands; perhaps some small spyglass from when he was a sailor; or perhaps his dirty goggles after flying his plane over the ocean. When I took these stories to my dad, he told me that his father was born on an island surrounded by a big river and worked in the apple orchards on that same island where he and my grandmother raised three boys. When he lost his job on the island, they moved to this town where he worked himself to death. He had not been a soldier, a sailor, or an aviator. My heroic stories about him disappeared into the air and that disappointed me.

My parents were quick to blame the old wooden chest for causing my obsession and recurring dreams. One day, when I came home from school, I went to look for it under my bed, but the chest was no longer there. I found a shoebox with my stuff instead. I ran over to my mom and asked her in a choppy voice:

—Where's my grandfather's chest?

She bent down and as she wiped my tears with a handkerchief she spoke to me. She said the chest was old and ruined, so my dad had taken it and thrown it away. That it was better that way, that thing could hurt me, it was better to get rid of it.

As soon as she finished saying this, I remember looking at her in anger and saying:

—It's the only thing I have on him, and you take it away from me! You can't do that to me!

I stormed out of the house. I ran for a long time without rest, not knowing where to go. I kept walking away from the streets of my neighborhood, with no desire or will to go home. It began to get dark, I looked around and realized that I was just around the corner from my grandmother's house. At that moment I thought of her, and I wanted to see her. I remembered all the afternoons spent at his house, running through the park with the dogs among the ceramic gnomes, the cookies and the coffee with milk on the kitchen table, the sugar cubes on the living room table. Maybe she knew something about the chest, I was determined to get it back, and I was hungry.

I ran to her door and rang the bell, heard the bells ringing inside, and then her footsteps approaching the door. She opened up, looked at me, smiled, and hugged me. After I got into the house and hugged her I felt calmer. She brought me into the kitchen and asked me if I wanted to have milk and cookies. I nodded wordlessly.

—What's going on with you? You have a scary face like you've seen a ghost. You come in and don't say a word to me, did the cat get your tongue?

—Grandma, Mom, and Dad took away from me the Grandpa's chest. It's so unfair, he gave it to me.

—Maybe they have a good reason for taking your chest out. They told me you're having some horrible dreams, and they think you could use some more rest and get away from that thing.

Standing by the kitchen as the milk warmed, she looked for a while at the floor as if searching for something lost and with a lamenting expression. Then the milk boiled and buzzed announcing that it was ready to be served, she did not react and it overflowed. After a while, he acted as if he had returned from another moment in time, cleaned up the spilled milk, and prepared everything. She brought my cup along with a big can full of cookies for me to choose from. She sat down next to me, stroked my head as I took my snack, and she spoke to me.

—He's no longer with us. He can't play with you anymore or stroke your hair. That's why I'm doing it for me and him. Your grandfather loved you with all his heart, never doubt it. You couldn't imagine how happy you made him. We should have lived many more years, together and happy, but he got sick.

I looked at her, her eyes were glazed over, and she looked sad. She wiped them right off, trying not to let me see her and gave me a forced smile.

—As for the chest, your dad came by yesterday worried, he thinks you're obsessed and that the chest is what's causing all this.

—Where's the chest?

—All in good time. Tell me, what do you want to know about your grandfather? I'll tell you anything you want. But you have to understand something very important, that your dad is still too sad to talk about his father's death. Besides, parents always have a hard time talking about certain things. That's what we grandmothers are for, to explain things that parents sometimes don't know-how. Come on, ask me anything you want to know.

—What was Grandpa like and what did he like to do?

—Your grandfather was a great person. He always seemed quiet and reserved, but with his grandchildren, he played like a kid. He loved playing with you when you came to visit. He always took you to the beach, you both walked over the sand and ate popcorn together.

—Grandma, in my dreams I'm eating popcorn on the beach with Grandpa.

—No wonder because you always did that. What you see in your dreams you actually lived with your grandfather. It seems to me that that chest, in time, brought you back memories of moments you had Already forgotten.

When she finished speaking I stood there thinking for a while, feeling as if something inside me that was broken was being fixed at that moment. I looked at her, and she smiled at me.

After I finished the milk, she took me home. We both walked the streets of the neighborhood listening to the crickets. The sun had already left and instead, the moon accompanied us.