Cardinal

From the minute my foot broke through the wooden board, I was sure I'd be caught. It was all I had in me to carefully slide my foot back out and peer through the previously boarded up window. The house was silent, not even the breeze blowing through the holes in the walls made noise. Though it did blow up dust with each gust, clouding my vision with a dull brown cloud.

There was something about old houses that just made me feel anxious.

I pushed past my initial feelings of unease and crawled through the windows, my thin hoodie tearing on a loose nail. I could feel the cool breeze from outside blow through the newly ripped open fabric. I silently cursed it, wondering if it was a sign of things to come. I reminded myself that I should just consider myself lucky to have a place to spend the night.

The setting sunlight still filtered into the windows, giving what I assumed was the living room an orange glow. There was an old couch on the far corner, covered in a layer of dust. It seemed the furniture in the room had mostly been taken, assuming there was ever furniture to begin. Though a glass cabinet still remained, still shut and holding mementos inside, completely sheltered from the passage of time.

I walked over to get a closer look, peering in at the photographs. One picture in the middle of the cabinet called me the most, it seemed like it was the most important one. It was a man and a woman, wearing college hoodies that read Bates and sitting in the grass of what looked to be a campus. The two smiled up at the camera, looking wide eyed and bright, like they had their futures ahead of them. The photograph looked well worn, as if it had been passed around before somebody had finally decided to frame it.

Every photograph in the case looked to be old, as if the couple had died young and whoever lived here wanted to remember them.

My attention was pulled away by a little black book propped up and inside the cabinet. Its cover seemed to shimmer, the textured exterior catching every inch of light. It didn't appear to be a novel type book but more of a pocket book. It being in the cabinet made me wonder if it held any sort of importance.

Before I knew it, I was opening the cabinet and reaching in to pluck the book up from it's stand. The cover felt grainy and well worn, the black peeling from the corners and revealing the brown base of the book. It felt light in my hands, and so thin, as if the book was only the cover with no pages inside.

I opened it to find only a single page, black ink all but soaking the yellowing paper, words written in cursive and almost impossible to read.

It's been a while. Some call it ages, I call it a lifetime. But not a day has gone by since I haven't thought about you. But for once, this isn't a love letter.

The doctors told me I was at the end of my rope when I was there today. So I suppose this is the last thing i'll ever write to you. Maybe that's a relief to hear, or maybe it'll make your heart sting. I like to think that even though you never write back that you secretly love getting these letters. That maybe it makes you think of the good old days.

I think about college a lot. I wonder about where you've been, what happened to that sweet girl I met senior year. I wonder if you ever made it to Hollywood to walk amongst the stars. But in the back of my mind I know that if you had, i'd be hearing your name on the news. Just like I heard about James and his ponzi scheme.

I wonder if you think about him. I know you used to think he was your ticket to the big league, he had money and I didn't. I wonder if you felt joy or loss when he got hauled off to jail, losing it all. To me it seemed like neither of you were meant to make it big in LA.

I used to dwell on those last words you ever told me, “You'll never amount to anything.”

I used to think that money was all that mattered, that if I had enough of it then i'd be able to have you.

I used to care what you thought.

Since that day I set aside a dollar a day for the last fifty four years of my life. I suppose I’d hoped that one day I would feel like I had enough to please you. I thought maybe if I could just hand you a thousand then you'd be happy. But the more letters I wrote you, the more I realized that one thousand wasn't enough, ten thousand wasn't enough.

Now I've lived my whole life and it only amounted to twenty grand.

I suppose it's twenty grand more than James had.

But is it enough for you?

02-04-09

I ran my fingers along the last line, feeling the indentations in the paper. I wondered if the numbers were a date, locking this letter in time. I felt as though I was holding a little piece of treasure in my hands, something sacred, at least to this house.

I carefully put it back in the cabinet, shutting the glass door as I thought about the love affair I had just read. I figured it could make a good movie, maybe a book, or even a short story.

The rest of the first floor looked ransacked, with only a few choice pieces of furniture still remaining. When I moved upstairs, I was surprised that there was still a healthy amount of furniture filling each room. As if the stairs had deterred people from taking anything, leaving everything untouched.

Downstairs, it felt like I was walking through an abandoned building, as if the most the cops could get me for was trespassing. But now it felt like I was actually in somebody's house, like I may turn the corner and find a woman with a phone in hand, ready to call the cops, get me for breaking and entering. I didn't belong here, and it was painfully obvious with each step.

Despite my reservations, I continued my exploration. If I was going to spend a few nights here, I wanted to be confident there wasn't somebody else here already. There weren't many rooms upstairs, just an office, second den and then a bedroom. I carefully examined the bedroom, the bland white sheets that went with the boring white curtains, wondering if I could potentially sleep here tonight.

The closet door was open, the shingles broken in nearly every slot. I walked over, sliding open the second door and looking in at all the coat jackets. All the overcoats looked identical, all made of a thick tweed, and all looking like something a psych professor would wear. I pulled one out, examining it and checking through the pockets just to make sure there wasn't any spare cash lying around. Spinning it around on the coat hanger, it slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor.

I crouched down to pick it up, sliding it off of what looked to be an old chest. The wood looked fresh, still carrying a shine, the metal that lined each edge looked rusty with age. My fingers grazed the metal lock, looking at the numbers engraved in each notch.

It reminded me of the green wooden chest my dad would keep in our garage. Ours never did have a lock though, it's not like a couple bags of bird seed were exactly valuable.

I pulled down on the lock, hoping that the three numbers already entered were the correct ones. Even though I figured there were only extra dress shoes in there, I wanted to open it regardless.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't sit there for too long entering random numbers and praying one would work.

I took a breath, standing up and giving up on opening the shoe chest. I hung the coat back up on the rack and turned my back to the closet. This room gave me the creeps, it felt like I was trespassing in somebody’s home, and it was a feeling I couldn't shake.

I went back downstairs, deciding I'd rather be staying somewhere it felt like I belonged. I all but fell into the old, stained fabric couch, looking up at the popcorn ceiling. A cool breeze blew in through the broken window, sending chills down my spine. I covered the hole in my sleeve with a hand, trying to preserve some form of heat.

My attention was once again drawn to the glass cabinet, seeing as how it was the only thing in the room to look at besides the ugly burgundy carpet. The letter I had read still played in my mind, making the pictures all seem much darker than they had previous. Suddenly the old college sweethearts didn't seem so sweet.

I opened the cabinet again, pulling out the little black book. In a way I was hoping another page would fall out to at least give me something else to do. Maybe open the story a little more, give me some form of entertainment for the long night ahead of me.

But nothing else was there, just those same words I had read before. It was all I could do to reread it, this time looking at the pictures after each sentence. Suppose I was trying to connect each piece of the story on my own, fill in the blanks with my own uneducated ideas.

I ran my fingers along the date again.

02-04-09

I thought about my own life in 2009, back when I lived in that old cottage with my parents. I thought about our sun room, the windows from floor to ceiling, not a single one boarded up or broken. I thought about our kitchen, one wall completely dedicated to hanging family photos, a smile on everyone's face. I thought about the cardinals that would sit on the roof every morning, just waiting to be fed. And I thought about the green wooden chest we kept in our garage.

Just for a moment I thought about the chest upstairs in the closet, and I wondered if it was sealed in time too.

I ran my fingers along the three numbers.

This time I took the book with me upstairs, blind to everything except the story in my hands. I wondered if there were more than just old shoes in the chest, maybe that there would be a continuation to this love affair.

By the time I got to the chest, my hands were shaking. Even though I wasn't confident this was the code, I knew these last three numbers meant something, and I had all night to figure out what. But the numbers slid easily into place, as if they knew they were as they should be.

A little click when I pulled assured me I had gotten it right, the music of the metal lock opening. I unhooked it from the chest’s latch, placing it gently on the floor beside me. When I pushed open the chest, I felt my heart flutter.

I knew what I was looking at instantly. It wasn't a pair of shoes, or an old photograph of the lost love. It was thousands and thousands of single dollar bills.

And I knew at that moment that I'd be able to buy a new hoodie.