Full of Promise

FULL OF PROMISE: THE OUTSIDER EIGHTH

Susan P. Thomas

No one saw me. No one heard me. And no one suspects anything is out of the ordinary.

You, my trusty little black book, will hear my confession. You are my confidante. You withhold judgment on my undisciplined occasional offerings, and grant me clean blank pages to start afresh, again and again.

Let me begin by saying I’ve always envied Anne Frank. Oh, not the way things turned out for her, of course, but that she had Kitty, a friend like you, in whom she confided regularly. And, in the end, that friend made all the difference. Kitty took in Anne’s sorrows, her dreams, her uneasy Amsterdam pubescence during Nazi occupation. Living in hiding, with her own and a second family, as hard as it was, as risky as it was, as crowded and unfair and dangerous—and quotidian--as it was, had weight.

And a lasting impact. Although completely by chance.

Anne’s diary, Kitty, was overlooked when the family’s hiding place was discovered and emptied of its inhabitants. With the exception of Anne’s father and Kitty, each of whom carried versions of her story, they all perished in concentration camps.

I’m sure you can tell that this isn’t quite the right comparison, the one I’m searching for. You wait for brilliance and I keep you waiting. But you always forgive my shortfalls, my awkward phrasing, my mis-chosen words, and open your next unspoiled page for me. What I mean to say is that no one knew Anne in the way Kitty did, because Kitty held her secrets.

Speaking of chance and secrets, here’s what I have to give you now.

Franklin left me twenty thousand dollars.

I know, what were the chances of that happening? Where did it come from? He never had money, always borrowed from friends, always complained about how much things cost, had a sketchy work history. Except for the cigarettes, he never bought anything he didn’t need. Just food, clothing, shelter, sometimes foregoing one or more of those--although not the cigarettes.

Twenty thousand dollars.

And I didn’t even like him. He was more a figment of my imagination than a real person, flitting in and out, weightless. What did he do all day? Where did he go? Did he have any conversations about life, his own or in general, and, if so, with whom? Not with me. Not that I recall, anyway.

I think on balance I’m a good person. At least I’m not a bad person. I didn’t mind when he came around, especially when we were all together and there were others to talk with. No one would have said I was unkind.

But mostly he listened. At least, I think that’s what he was doing when he sat there with the seven of us, friends from work and school. He watched, his ankle loosely resting on his knee, his hands kneading his calf. Every once in a while he would clear his throat and push back his wispy hair in that nervous way, as though he was about to speak.

Maybe he wasn’t just listening. Maybe he was sitting in judgment. And the others failed. While I, for some reason known only to him, slipped through.

Into this. This thing filled with potential.

Would an unexpected twenty thousand have saved the Frank family? Money to bribe someone, purchase false papers, whatever was needed to open doors. Anne entering middle class obscurity somewhere in Illinois, never doing much with her remarkable talent. Becoming a teacher or a nurse or working for Ma Bell, maybe haunted by survivor guilt. Who knows?

Like me.

As I said, no one saw me open the letter from the law firm. No one heard me gasp. No one has any clue that this money, crazy Franklin’s money, is now mine. How could they, when no one thought he had any? I could choose to do anything I wanted with it.

And there’s the rub. I hate its potential, the burden of it.

I’ve always hated great potential. God awful potential has weighed me down throughout my life. The potential to achieve. The potential to be known and admired for my work. The potential to act nobly. The potential to get into shape. The potential to remodel that dingy apartment into my version of paradise. The potential to learn to do something, anything, with skill. The potential to get my papers in order. The potential to repair what I’ve broken, whether the spotted china dog or my relationship with my sister, if I just gave it the attention it deserved.

The potential to write daily in your waiting empty pages, to capture and shape thoughts and emotions, those with weight. The potential to be more.

I’ve had opportunities—and have wasted them all.

Anne Frank had potential and didn’t waste any of it. Although, you have to admit, living with the SS stalking the streets looking for Jews probably did help to focus her attention.

Did Franklin see my potential? Or did he see, instead, a kindred spirit who had failed to live up to her potential? Is that how I passed, how I merited his money? Through a perverse system of demerits?

One spring evening, in weather full of promise, our group of seven, friends from work and school, sat at our favorite café’s sidewalk tables, recently brought out from storage. Franklin joined us, as he often did. I bought his coffee that time, while he went off somewhere to smoke. When he returned, he mumbled to me, “If only.” I didn’t pick up on it. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to know what he was hoping or regretting, didn’t want to travel any distance with him, really.

Instead, I angled my body a little more toward the others, away from him. Listened to what they were saying, offered them my attention, wit and wisdom. Did they receive it? I don’t remember. Now I just remember Franklin, that shadow in my peripheral vision.

This is how I’m afraid it’s going to be from now on. Franklin, uninvited next to me. Watching. Judging.

That was Jessica on the phone. I’m trying to process what I just heard, but my hands and my thoughts are shaking and I’m not sure I can.

After his death, Jessica remembered something Franklin had said. It resurfaced with urgency in recent days, making her wonder. So, she risked some gentle inquiries.

“You all are my family,” he told her, in the middle of one of our gatherings. “You’ll do good.”

Her search found that each of us, all seven of us, received twenty thousand dollars from Franklin, the outsider eighth. In total, he left us one hundred forty thousand dollars. What we don’t know about one another!

You’ll do good.

I know where this is taking me.

To the Frank family today. To a refugee family, fleeing for their lives.

This much I’ve learned. I’m not going to fulfill my extraordinary potential, and twenty thousand dollars to be wisely used for that purpose will hang heavy around my neck.

But I can open up someone else’s future with Franklin’s inheritance. Whether that future turns out to be remarkable or simply ordinary, or some of both--as it is for most of us.

The burden I inherited will be someone else’s way ahead.

It will do good.

And I will start fresh with you, my little black book, whom I’ve given a name.

Franklin.