The Sofabed

The Georgia sun shone relentlessly in through the flimsy fabric covering the living room window, its lacy pattern casting whimsical shadows across the hardwood floor of the studio apartment. Jasmine groaned and rolled over, pulling a pillow over her head to block the light. 5:30, Jasmine thought, was a criminally early time to be awakened after pulling a double shift at the diner. But there would be no reprieve, since Kit was also awake and tugging at the pillow, her 5- year old persistence more stubborn than the sun’s. “Mommymommymommy-WAKE UP!!”

“Hey, baby girl, let mama sleep just a little longer…” she mumbled, pulling back on the pillow. Kit’s pink cupid lips pouted with disappointment, but she obediently crawled onto the couch next to her mother, snuggling in, then proceeding to wiggle and twist until Jasmine gave up and sat up, pulling her daughter onto her lap. “What is your big hurry, missy?”, she asked. “It’s pancake day!, Kit answered.

Then Jasmine remembered- it was the first Sunday of the month, and the Pancake Palace restaurant had half off breakfast until 11. She stifled another groan, looking into those hopeful eyes. Kit had already experienced lots of disappointments in her 5 short years, starting with her grandparents disavowing them both and her father disappearing shortly after she was born.Unplanned pregnancies still carried the bitter taste of shame in many small Southern towns. On their own, they were barely making it, and the monthly pancake breakfast was a special treat to look forward to every month. They dressed, threw on well-worn sneakers, and started the 2 mile walk to the bus stop.

Part way there, Jasmine abruptly halted. “Come ON, mommy!”, Kit said, as she tugged tenaciously on her mother’s hand.

“Just a minute, baby, let me look at this.”

Jasmine had stopped in front of a dilapidated little ranch house, its windows boarded up.

She had passed the house many times, but thought it abandoned, with its brown hedge and dead lawn. A lone Magnolia tree stubbornly flowered in the middle of the dirt, defiantly beautiful amidst the decay. Sitting incongruously in front of the house was a sofa, and not just a sofa, but a roll out bed sofa. And taped to the front of it, wavering in the warm southern breeze was a “FREE” sign, hand lettered in unsteady but clear writing. Jasmine rubbed her back, still sore from sleeping on the sofa in the studio with its worn springs.She inspected the furniture piece more closely. Its dark wood had a few nicks and scratches but the fabric on the cushions was in good condition, with a vintage trellis pattern in soft pastels. Jasmine loved it. She pulled out her phone and dialed the landlord. Within an hour, she had her sofa in the apartment and the old one was placed in the street awaiting pick up with the trash on Monday. The landlord even gave them a ride to the Pancake Palace.

They could hardly wait to try it out.The bed had been surprisingly easy to set up for a vintage 1930’s design. Jasmine stretched out and smiled at the luxury of a real bed. Well, almost a real bed. The peaceful moment lasted less than a minute before a small tornado named Kit raced across the room and jumped onto it. “Hey, you”, Jasmine said in a sharp voice. "Settle down, Katherine Jean!”. Kit stopped her jumping and sat next to Jasmine, looking up with wide green eyes. She knew she was in trouble when her mother called her that. Named after both her grandmothers, the choice did not soften their opinion of an out of wedlock grandchild. Kit was her own person, a unique blend of her parents, with light olive skin and wavy brown hair, which now framed her face with untamable curls. Jasmine thought she was incredibly lovely, and it ripped her very soul when she heard murmured comments carelessly spoken by strangers as they passed . “I’m sorry, baby, I just want this sofa to last.” Jasmine sat up and pulled her close. She wished, as mother’s do, that she could protect her child from every heartache, but that wasn’t life, was it?

As she pulled Kit closer, she stopped. The jumping had moved something in the sofabed’s mattress and a hard lump was now noticeable at the edge of it. “Uh, oh, what’s this?” Jasmine said, as she reached over to feel the hardness of it. “I’m sorry, mommy, I didn’t mean to break it!” Kit said, almost in tears. “ No honey, it’s ok, there’s something in the couch, just let me take a look at it.” Jasmine inspected the edge, where she could see a long row of neat stitches. “I think someone sewed something in here.” She carefully pulled out the stitches before reaching in and pulling out an old leather pouch.

She and Kit looked at each other with wide eyes. “What is it, mommy?” “I don’t know, let’s open it and see.” Jasmine unzipped the pouch and reached inside, pulling out stacks of $100 dollar bills. She laid them carefully in stacks of ten each, until she had a total of twenty stacks.

“Oh my gosh, baby-girl, that’s $20,000!”

“What does that mean, mommy?”

Jasmine sat back. It meant a LOT. Her mind raced with the bills it could pay, maybe an actual vacation and a deposit on a nicer apartment. Her thoughts soared like a hot air balloon, and came crashing back to earth as suddenly as if deflated by a missile at the sound of Kit’s voice.

“Mommy, we have to give it back.”

Leave it to a child to remind an adult of the right thing to do. Someone whose life was not yet complicated by bills and worry. She was right, of course. I mean, it wasn’t like Jasmine did not know where the money had come from. Money was often hidden in mattresses after the Great Depression and the closing of banks that had caused so many to lose their life savings. And that little house had been there through the Depression era and more.

The next day, they walked to the house with the boarded up windows and knocked.

The door remained closed but a gravelly voice came through loud and clear: “Go away! I’m not buying and I don’t want your pamphlets, either!”. Jasmine looked at Kit. This might not be as easy as she had thought. Undeterred, Jasmine knocked again, saying “it’s just a neighbor, and we want to give you back something we found in the couch you gave away!” She was leaning forward toward the door, and jumped back suddenly when the door swung open.

In the doorway, hands on her hips, stood a small, elderly woman, barely 5 feet tall. Yet somehow her presence seemed to fill the doorframe. “Well, don’t that just take the cake, an honest neighbor! Lordy, Lordy!” She looked them over one at a time, her face a crinkled roadmap of her life, the lines crossing everywhere a testimony to the years she had lived. But the blue eyes still twinkled brightly. “Well, don’t just stand there, come in for some sweet tea!” She turned abruptly but left the door open, and after a moment’s hesitation, they followed her in.

And so began an unlikely friendship, the three brought together by fate and honesty. Tessa Mae Mackay had lived in the neighborhood since married at age 18. She had raised her son and lived through the depression, the great war and the fall of the Berlin wall. She had also lived long enough to bury her son and husband. Tessa’s family and friends had slowly moved away or passed away. Jasmine organized a group with the help of her landlord to clear things out, repaint, and fix up the little house. They spent much time there over the next few years. Tessa Mae became the grandmother that Kit didn’t know she had been missing, and the emotional support that Jasmine needed while being a single mother. Tessa Mae unknowingly helped to heal the wounds of rejection with the balm of love, the most powerful medicine of all.

The years spent with her were all too short, and though the blue eyes still sparkled with mischief, the decades took their relentless toll on Tessa, and there finally came the day she lay in her bed, with Jasmine and Kit by her side. It was a peaceful end to a life well lived and she breathed her last earthly breath with a smile on her face. Jasmine could not help but think she was smiling a greeting to her son, finally reunited in a place where death did not sever the bonds of love. Tessa was laid to rest in the tomb of her husband and son, the final chapter in her life finished. Life went on, as it is wont to do, and the world kept its frantic pace even as Jasmine and Kit struggled with the loss of their dear friend, their pain lessening ever so slowly as the days turned to months. Then came the day of The Knock.

It had started out poorly, with both Jasmine and Kit home recovering from a flu bug, and laying on the roll out bed watching old black and white films. Jasmine reluctantly threw on her bathrobe over her pajamas as she answered the door. “Who’s there?”, she asked while looking through the door peephole. What she saw was not comforting- a tall, dark haired man dressed in a three piece suit. Those types of people did not come to this type of neighborhood unless it was with a search warrant. Jasmine’s heart started to race. Was this something to do with Kit’s father? What had he gotten into and how was this going to hurt them?

The man answered “I’m looking for Miss Jasmine Reynold, on behalf of the estate of Tessa Mae Mackay”. His face through the peephole looked kind enough, and the mention of her dear friend’s name was reassuring. Jasmine opened the door and invited him in. “You are a tough lady to get a hold of,” he commented. “You don’t seem to answer your phone. I’m with the law firm of Willoby and Jacobs, and we have been trying to find you for months.” He handed her a card, identifying himself as John Roberts, lawyer. “Um, what’s this all about?” Jasmine asked, hesitantly taking the card.

“Mom, who’s there?” Kit’s voice sounded hoarse. “Just a minute, Kit.”

She stepped into the hallway, pulling her robe tighter as she closed the door behind her. John Roberts slowly reached into his leather briefcase and pulled out a small black book, emblazoned with the scripted letters TMM. “This black book was found among Ms. Mackay’s belongings. She died without a formal living trust. My firm has handled her family’s estate for decades, but she refused our advice on executing a formal trust.” He held up the little black book. “Inside this book, however, are clear instructions to her estate, dated and signed. It functions as a last will and testament for the deceased.”

Jasmine still looked confused. “What does that mean? Why are you here?” She asked.

“The instructions list you and your daughter as sole heirs of the estate. I am here to write you a check.”

“But Miss Tessa didn’t have anything, except that little house, and I thought it had to be sold for back taxes.”

“Maybe you should sit down, Miss Reynolds.” The lawyer proceeded to talk. “ Ms. Mackay was heir to the Castro Convertable fortune, the inventor of the Sofabed. The check I am about to write to you is worth several million dollars.”

And so a random act of kindness mixed with the honesty of a child changed the lives of Jasmine and Kit forever. But it was the love of Tessa Mae that meant the most of all.