You and Socks

You know that groggy feeling you get after bawling your eyes? Well, It had finally settled after a long sit and a cold drink. I guess wasn’t bawling. It was more of stifled rage combined with intense sadness but only a few tears escaping.

Everyone else had left, and I figured I should too. I had planned to stay the night in one of the guest rooms, but the once warm house seemed hollow now that he was no longer here.

I reach behind the bar to get my purse when I hear someone talking in the office down the hall. Not someone. People. 2 women are softly bickering and rummaging around.

I felt my body stiffen. I moved slowly down the hall so as not to make a sudden noise but, the dark hardwood floors sharply creaked every 3 or 4 steps. One of the double doors to the office was open. I stopped to listen just before getting close enough to peek inside.

“Did you look in the desk?”

“I already told you I did”

“Well, look again”

“If you think I’m doing it wrong, do it yourself.”

It was my cousins.

“Hey!” I barked as stepped into view at the threshold.

“Oh my god! Emily!?” Sarah jumped and threw a handful of papers onto the desk. “You scared me!”

“Yeah, what the hell?”, shouted Candice as she stepped towards me.

“What the hell? You tell me! What are you guys doing in here? Digging through all his stuff”

The rage that I had been suppressing at the funeral bubbled up again. These two idiots and their mom, who I now refuse to refer to as my aunt, spent half the funeral making comments about what they think Grandpa left them.

When does the lawyer tell us what we get?

Will it be a lump sum now or will we have to wait til were 25?

I wonder what’s happening to the beach house.

It wasn’t exactly what they said that was a problem. It was the fact that they just seemed so damn excited about it. The man has been dead for less than a week and they were acting as if they had won the lottery.

“Girls, did you find it?", I whip my head around to see Sarah and Candice's mom strolling into the office, glancing down at her waist and gently patting a bit of black lace that had lifted from her dress.

Sarah stood at attention, worried about what her mom would do when she saw me.

“No.” sighed Candice, annoyed as she slumped into the chaise lounge.

“Shh..” Sarah motioned at her sister.

I was watching them. But Meredith was watching me.

“Emily. Dear. What are you doing here?”

“I thought someone was robbing the place so, I came in here. Only, I see these 2 tearing everything apart.”

“Ohhh..” she laughs.

Sarah and Candice look at each other and start laughing too.

She slowly walks around eyeing the office up, pulling on her gloves, and adjusting her fascinator.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

She heads over to the dresser to casually gaze into a drawer they left open.

“Sarah was just looking for an old picture,” she says, “of her and her Grandfather from when they summered here one year.”

“Yes, that’s what I was doing.” nodded Sarah.

Meredith floated over to a pile of papers on the floor and poked them with her feet.

“And you didn’t find it, you say?”

“Nope. We didn’t!” said an exasperated Candice.

“Or any similar pictures, that, we may want to keep? For… sentimental reasons?"

I drag my hand down my face. I know what they’re looking for, yet they feel the need to put on this charade.

“I found this one with Grandpa and some cat. It looks pretty old. Nice picture though, right?”, perked Sarah.

Candice rolls her eyes.

Sarah was the nicest of the family but also the most naïve.

“No, no, it's fine. Let’s go girls. The limo is here. The lawyer asked to speak to us tomorrow here at the manor. But come, we have early dinner reservations back at the hotel."

Candice’s foul mood lifted. “Oh good! I’m starving”. She said as leaped out of her seat and headed for the door.

“Did he ask to speak to you, Emily?”, condescended Meredith. She knows the answer is no.

“No, he didn’t”

“Shame, but I figured. You know how my mom’s family is. Blood only. This is all still theirs after all.”

“Right.”

She turns and leaves. “Come Sarah”

Sarah hands me the picture.

“You have it.”, She whispered, “You were closest to him.”

Their heels click down the hallway until the heavy entrance door slams shut behind them.

Maybe the only reason I wasn’t excited about getting money is that I knew I wasn’t getting any at all.

I was adopted. I didn’t count.

Grandma’s brothers still owned the whole estate and Grandpa never really had any money of his own. Since my mom had already passed away I would not be getting an inheritance.

I look down at the picture.

Grandpa and “some cat”?! His favorite cat. Socks. He loved this cat. He lived for 17 years. Grandma died when I was 4 years old and that Christmas Mom and I brought him this kitten. He was overjoyed. Not only is this one of my earliest memories I have but one of the happiest. It was my first Christmas with Mom.

I put the picture in my purse and head for the front door. Except, I don’t feel ready to say goodbye. I know I will never see this place again.

I go out the kitchen door to the backyard and down the slope to Grandpa's old shed. It's not actually a shed. It's more just a space where he could do whatever he wants. Apparently, Grandma was more than a little traditional and didn’t like him messing up the house with all his 'junk'. When she died he just left everything as it was. He spent tons of time in here.

When my mom died, I moved in with Grandpa for 6 months. It was nice to be around him. I was supposed to be sent to live with Meredith since it was still another month until I was 18. At the wake, I told him I didn’t want to go with her, and without even asking why he smiled and said, “You’ll just stay with me then.”

The shed had an overhang that faced away from the house with 2 chairs underneath. It looked toward the trees at the back and if you didn’t know better you would have thought you were at a rustic cabin in the woods and not at the back of some huge mansion.

We would sit in the shade and drink lemonade. Poor old Socks on his lap. And he would tell me all his stories. About mom and Meredith. About Grandma. About when he was young. The same stories, over and over. About his treasure.

I’m completely certain his often-repeated treasure story was what they were all searching for in his office.

A couple of years after Grandma died he started saying that he had a secret treasure. It was paper but it wasn’t money and he was going to give it to the grandkids.

My mom and I never took it seriously. He liked telling silly stories and who knew if this was even true. He was old.

Meredith assumed it was real. And she almost seemed jealous that it wasn’t for her.

She would guess.

“Is it a patent? Or invention?”

“No.”

“Do you have stocks in a big company? Or the rights to a trademark?

“You can keep guessing, and I’ll just keep saying no.”

I go into the shed. Everything had its usual layer of dust.

I scan the long wooden tool bench looking at all the knick-knacks, seeing which ones I remembered from that summer and what was new: there was the large vise grip on the edge of the tool bench that had been there as long as I could remember, an old free gas sign that he picked up at a garage sale that summer I spent with him, a little pewter vase with a lid that read, wait…what?…I brush the dirt away. Socks? Oh, Socks! Ummm, yup. Cremated cat. I never realized he did that. I can't decide if it was creepy or sweet. As I said, he loved that cat.

Old lamps, a pile of river rocks, and a stack of old magazines.

Then I notice an old metal case. I remember grandpa and I playing with it and using it to hold sticks and rocks I found around the yard.

It looks like an old kid's metal lunch box and was a dull silver. All dinged up.

I open it up, and inside were dead leaf bits, dried sticks, and a few pebbles. I remember that summer that I stayed with him he brought it out and asked me if we could go collecting special things one last time. I bet these were the same things I collected a decade ago.

Beneath the sticks and leaves was a small black leather notebook. I shake the book to knock off the sand and start reading.

Emily is at the pond feeding the ducks. She wants the ducks to come closer and is quacking at them saying she speaks duck language trying to tell them to come.

The book was full of anecdotes of my childhood.

Emily asked for a piggyback ride and I carried her around the yard while Sarah and Candice screamed, “Grandpa is a piggy”. The girls were in hysterics.

Emily is petting Socks as he lays in the shade of the tree outside my shed. She fell asleep. She’s already been there with him for over an hour. She’ll give her mom a hard time a bed tonight but I just can't bear to wake them.

The whole notebook was full.

I flip to the back to see the last entry in the book and see my name in big letters written across the top of the page.

I’m remembering now. That summer. He made a point of talking about this chest. Saying that my treasures would always be here. Even as a kid, he always called it my treasure chest.

EMILY

I hope today I reminded you of your treasure chest enough that you come to look for it. I’m sorry I had to hide this but with all my talk I knew Meredith would search high and low. I was worried if anyone knew, even you, that it would get found out. It was just supposed to be this little book. Just to show you grandkids how much I’ve always loved you. But with your mom gone now, it's something special just for you.

Ever since your Grandma died it has not been the same. My home isn’t my own and my own daughter sees me as a blockade to her fortune.

You and socks. That’s all I truly have left in this world.

I’ve sneaked away some money for you. $20,000. It’s not much. Not compared to what they'll end up getting but it's all I could do without raising suspicion from your Grandma's brothers.

There’s a safety deposit box in your name at Red Western Credit Union in Aberdean. The key is above the door frame.

I love you, my dear.

Grandpa

I wipe a tear from my eye and check the top of the door frame for the key.

I put the key and the notebook into the lunch kit, grab Socks and leave.

Once in my car, I get the map from my glovebox and trace out the directions to the town. 50 miles from here.

I smile and sigh as I start my car.

“Okay, Socks. Let’s go for a drive”.