Mr. Tweedie’s Suitcase

The death call came in just past midnight on the day that changed Remi Holt’s life forever. Without opening his eyes, he reached for his cell phone and answered it in a voice that suggested to the nurse on the other end that he hadn’t been asleep for very long. “This is Remi with Holt’s Funeral Home,” he mustered.

“Hi Remi, it’s Paige calling from Seasons Care Home. One of our residents has passed away.” Her calm voice chimed on the line, always calm and pleasant, even in the middle of the night.

“Thanks for letting me know. Is the family there?”

“No,” she hesitated.

Remi sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Paige, we’ve talked about this. You understand I can’t pick up that body without speaking to the family first.”

“There is no family. Mr. Tweedie admitted himself to the care home a few years ago, he never mentioned any family and he’s never had any visitors.” Paige paused. “There’s something else, Remi,” she finally said.

He sat up in his bed and reached for the lamp on his nightstand, wincing at the artificial light it offered him in that midnight hour. “What is it?” His tone was softer.

“He left a suitcase in his room. For you. He said we were to leave it for the undertaker who came to collect him. He knew your name.”

Remi furrowed his brow. It certainly wasn’t a normal situation, he thought, but there nothing about being a mortician that was normal. “Thank you for the heads up. I’ll be on my way shortly. Can I have Mr. Tweedie’s full name and date of birth?” Remi scribbled the information on a pad of paper at his bedside, thanked the nurse, and hung up the phone.

He arrived at the care home forty minutes later, emerging from the funeral home’s transfer van wearing his familiar herringbone overcoat. Paige greeted him at the side door of the building. Once he’d brought the stretcher inside, he followed her down the building’s central hallway until they reached Mr. Tweedie’s room.

The room was mostly bare, painted with the same sad taupe colour that graced every wall in the building. Mr. Tweedie was laying in his bed with a peaceful expression adorning his face. He seemed familiar, but Remi couldn’t recall if or when they’d met. He gently folded the quilt and placed an identification tag on the elderly man’s left ankle.

“I’ve never liked this part,” Paige sighed as she helped Remi lift Mr. Tweedie’s body on to the stretcher.

“Which part?” Remi asked without looking up.

“When there’s no family,” she said.

“Sometimes it’s better that way. No one left behind to suffer the loss.” Remi couldn’t explain why he’d said it.

Paige cleared her throat. “The suitcase is in there,” she said, pointing to a small cabinet in the corner of the room. “The key,” she continued, “is in the safe at the nurse’s station. I’ll get it for you on your way out.”

He nodded without a word, distracted by a scent on Mr. Tweedie’s bedding. “Is that perfume?” He asked the nurse.

“Yes,” she smiled, “he said it reminded him of home.” She watched the funeral director’s expression change, from that of indifference to something more fragile. Nostalgic, even. “I’ll go get that key for you,” she said, and left Remi alone in the room with Mr. Tweedie and his scented bedding.

Remi leaned over the pillow and inhale gently; tears began to form reluctantly in his eyes. “It’s my wife’s perfume,” he exhaled.

His wife hadn’t worn it since she fell ill just shy of two years ago. Remi thought about that awful day when they sat, trembling together, in a cold waiting room while an oncologist explained that it was far too late to do anything. The drive to the funeral home seemed faster than usual, even in the dead of night in a small town.

Upon securing Mr. Tweedie’s remains in the funeral home’s small morgue, Remi brought the suitcase into his even smaller office and placed it carefully on his desk. It looked relatively new. He’d been expecting the opposite. It was navy blue, with a heavy duty metal zipper that went nearly all the way around; the two zipper ends met in the middle and were secured by a small brass lock. Remi couldn’t pinpoint where his anxiety was coming from, only that it was parching his mouth as he fumbled through his pocket for the key.

The lock made a soft click as it popped open. As the sound of the opening zipper filled the void of silent space around him, Remi noticed a little river of nervous energy spreading from his sternum to his tailbone; he chose to ignore it and laid the suitcase open like a clamshell. Resting on top was a formal suit jacket, folded neatly and wrapped in cellophane, beneath which laid a pair of polished black leather shoes. Remi carefully removed the plastic packaging from the suit. It was clear, from the soft fray around the cuffs to the delicate rows of darning, that it had been worn and repaired several times before. With his mind still partially in work mode, Remi hung up the suit on one the vacant hangers he kept in a closet for such things. He turned his attention back to the suitcase.

There appeared to be nothing left inside, but he noticed a small tab of fabric sticking up from the flat base. Remi’s heart skipped. He hesitated for a moment before pulling the tab; as he did, the bottom panel popped out of place like the back of a picture frame and he was able to take it out. He set the panel aside on his desk and looked at the contents hidden in the false bottom of Mr. Tweedie’s suitcase.

Nestled in a small, mesh pouch was a black moleskin book. He removed it and held it securely in his hand as he sat back down in his desk. As he opened it, something fell from the pages inside and landed softly in his lap. He placed the book gently on his desk as he looked down to spot a photograph. He picked it up with a shaky hand. The picture was small, but it was immediately recognizable: it was Remi and his wife.

More concerning was the third person in the photograph: a young girl, roughly five years of age. As he stared at the little piece of glossy paper, his heartbeat still on hold, he realized he didn’t remember the picture ever having been taken. And he noticed, with great unease, that he looked older. His wife looked older, too. The little girl looked like them. He flipped it over and found three names written on the back in blue pen: Wendy, Remi and Ruby.

Remi frantically reached for the black book, his body writhing with adrenaline, as tears formed paths along the planes of his thin face. There, on the second page, began a letter:

Dearest Remi,

I understand that this must come as an ungoldy shock to you. The reasons that led me to divulging this secret that I’ve carried with me all my life are numerous, but the primary reason is this: Wendy can be saved. I beg of you, do not consume my words in vain. If you’ve seen the photograph, you already understand I’m telling you the truth.

Sewn inside my suit is $20,000 in cash, along with the name and contact information of a colleague of mine who is a doctor in New Zealand. Tell this doctor that you have Mr. Tweedie’s suitcase, she will be expecting you and know what to do next. You will also find a few documents taped to the last page of this book, they will help you find the answers you need. Do not, under any circumstance, share these findings with anyone.

I have prayed for the day when you come to understand what it is I’ve been through to get this information to you. More importantly, what you and I have been through. Unfortunately I cannot explain more without placing either of us at great risk. Just know that it’s going to be okay, Remi, I promise you that. There is no such thing as time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Tweedie

Remi sat quietly, long enough to smoke four cigarettes back to back while he thought about what it all meant. He thought of his wife and her precarious condition, laying in the room which they intended to use for a nursery; it was meant to be a sacred place to welcome a new life, not a place of mourning for a future they were sure to lose. He sobbed at his desk until the front of his shirt was damp and his eyes were red and weary. It was in those dark moments that he feared what he would find in the final pages of Mr. Tweedie’s journal of confessions.

True to Mr. Tweedie’s word, there was indeed something taped to the back page of the black book: a document indicating a legal name change, which was wrapped around a driver’s licence. Remi looked at the name on the licence first; it belonged to Wallace Russel Tweedie, and yet had Remi’s own face on it, only aged, alongside the date it was issued: November 9, 2046 – nearly twenty five years in the future.

He looked back at the name change form and read it with clutched hands, his face flushing and then turning to the colour of ash; the document was issued shortly before the licence was, to a Remi Wallace Holt who changed his name to Wallace Russel Tweedie.

“This is impossible,” Remi lamented out loud. There was no one to hear him but the deceased in the adjacent room. How was he to believe that he’d found a way to send a future version of himself to the past? He stared at the black book in disbelief. “Impossible,” he said again, although his certainty had already begun to wane. He put everything back into the suitcase, including the suit he’d hung up, and slipped the lock back into place. For the briefest of moments before leaving the funeral home, Remi considered seeing Mr. Tweedie – himself, allegedly – one more time, but let the moment pass.

Remi put the suitcase, with all of its contents nested safely inside, back in the van and drove home in silence. He would inevitably check the suit for the cash and the contact information, even though a part of him already knew it was there. What would he say to Wendy? Would she trust him enough to go to New Zealand? How would he explain where the money came from? Remi furrowed his brow. “Dammit, Mr. Tweedie,” he sighed.

When he got home, Remi went into his wife’s room – the nursery – and sat down on her bed. She stirred but did not wake. He looked around the room at the decorations they couldn’t bring themselves to put away: an oak trunk filled with soft stuffed animals; wooden shapes of whales, sailboats, and starfish hanging on the pale blue walls; an old rocking chair they’d inherited from Wendy’s parents and restored together. Remi and his wife had wanted a family more than anything. They still did. The answer to Remi’s question wasn’t to be found in Mr. Tweedie’s suitcase, the black book, the money, or even in his own heart. The answer was his wife, the life she clung to, and the fragility of their situation. He placed his hand on her forehead and smiled. “I can’t wait for you to meet Ruby,” he said.