The Hidden Notebook

Another pair of eyes looking at him with that look that they think are telling him “I am so sorry for your loss”, but what he can plainly tell is really saying, “I have no idea what to say to this guy”. Sure, some of the distant family and his older friends might know what it’s like to lose someone they love, but at only twenty-seven, John was the only person he could think of that had managed to lose both of his parents. His mother had passed away when he was young, plenty of time and love for those wounds to heal, his dad had seen to that. John was an only child, though he never felt alone. So when his dad recently had passed away in his sleep, it had hit John like a ton of bricks. Another firm handshake and a hand on his shoulder jolted him out of the escape into his mind. His father’s longtime friend Charlie and to Johns surprise, also his father’s attorney, told him that he needed to see him in his father’s office once the reception was over. The rest of the reception went by without much recollection from John.

John sat feeling the same leathery arm rests he had felt for the past ten or so years, the matching set sitting in front of his fathers cluttered office desk. The desk still sitting ready for the next day of work that his dad would never have the opportunity to complete, notes and doodles laid around from calls and thoughts from his days hard at work. Charlie sat across from John in his father’s chair, holding a stack of papers and just stared at John in silence as John finally came into full awareness of the moment. “I’m sorry Charlie, I just can’t get used to the thought that I won’t ever sit here again and listen to one of his epic lessons on how to make my life better”, John said. Charlie chuckled lightly and replied, “I know what you mean. I cannot tell you how many nights he and I spent together in this room. Me sitting right where you are now, him sitting here, telling me exactly what to do or some lesson he had learned that would fix my life. That man was full of wisdom”, he paused and his face curled into a sly smile. “He was full of something else too!” They both laughed heartily at this. Charlie said to John, “Well I will make this really simple for you Johnny. Your dad was a simple man, you know that. Worked hard and made an honest living, you both have lived a very simple life. All he ever wanted for you was to be able to make you really truly happy and give you the future you deserved in his eyes. He never felt he was able to complete that goal in life. I tried to convince him otherwise and we talked about that often. He just never could quite understand that you already seemed pretty happy to me.” John was taken back by this, did his dad really think that he wasn’t able to make him happy? Did he really think that he was not satisfied with what his dad had given him through the years? He loved his life. Charlie continued, “He told me that he didn’t think this would take you any closer to a mansion by the beach, but he was proud that he could at least offer you what he considered to be a “pittance for his boy”. So he left everything to you effective immediately. The house, the old Mustang in the garage, literally everything that has his name on it now belongs to you Johnny”.

John was actually stunned, something his dad had always talked about was giving back when he passed away. Granted he had to of thought that would be much later in life, since they had lots of talks about the kind of great things they could do with their future. His dad had always made it sound like the plan at the end was to give it all back, or rather to send it all on to someone new once they were done with their lives and John moved on to his own life. John and Charlie spent the next few hours working out the details, but within mere hours, John went from a guy who rented an apartment in a slightly shady part of town, to owning a home, two cars and a lot of junk that his dad had never had the time to pick through. Which he realized now meant that for the rest of his week he would be spending the time he would want to be spending grieving for his dad, instead cleaning up his dad’s old mess. John laughed at this thought and said, “Seems about right actually. All the jokes I gave him about it, makes sense that he would go and leave it for me to clean up. Got me again dad”.

The next morning he found himself walking into his dad’s room, well his dad old room, right after breakfast. He had decided that he would start here, not because socks were the easiest thing to throw away, not because this room had the least amount of junk piled on random tables, but because you could still smell the old mans after shave wafting from the master bathroom. He had not realized this was the reason he chose this room until he stepped in the room and the smell immediately transported him to a time of his dad teaching him to shave in that mirror. With this oncoming rush of emotions John sat on the bed for a moment and before he even realized what had happened, he had sat back against the head board, lost in after shave induced memories from his teenage years. As he began to look around the room he saw that the end table to the side of the bed had been pulled out away from the wall a bit, he thought to himself that this must be because the EMT’s who came in that fateful morning must have knocked the table around. Though he stopped and asked himself “Why? Why would an EMT pull it out? If anything wouldn’t they push it in, to get it out of their way?” John looked at the table and saw that just barely out of view on the back side of the nightstand was something just out of view. He reached out but thought maybe this was some sort or weapon for home safety, so started to back off. Though in a moment he had grabbed onto a book and pulled it from a cleverly disguised holding unit on the back side of the night stand. As he brought the book closer he realized it wasn’t really a book after all, in fact in was one of those old time black notebooks. It appeared to be bound in black leather with crisp white pages and a fairly well used leather spine. This thing even had one of those old school wrapping locking mechanisms to help keep the notebook closed when not in use. John thought out loud, “How awesome is this! A secret notebook? My dad was a spy. Awesome.” Sure, John knew that his dad was not a spy, but he asked himself “What else do you think of someone when you find a secret notebook like this? Assassin!” After a second John laughed and began to calm down, realizing that the concept of his dad being an assassin was hilarious. He had seen his dad in that walkathon, this wasn’t some marathon either, just a walk for Alzheimer’s put on by a local elementary school. John said out loud, “The only thing you murdered old man, were those cupcakes last month!” His dad would’ve been so proud of that one, he had been working hard on his dad humor and it was starting to show.

John cracked open the notebook and began to thumb through the pages. It looked like this was actually a journal of sorts. Random thoughts that his dad had put together through the years. He laughed as he saw a note about a woman his dad worked with and cringed at the thought of his own father acting like a teenage boy crushing on the “pretty lady” at work. He continued to flip page after page and realized his father must have been writing in this journal for years! The time jumps between entries were obviously large spans of times, a year or possibly more. As he neared the end of the notebook there were a few empty pages and just as John was about to place the book back onto the nightstand so he could get back to work on the house he noticed the pages in the back appeared to be written on as well. He flipped to the back and the back few pages appeared to of been reserved for a special section. In bold letters across the top of the first of the reserved pages was a single word, “Regrets”. John was actually surprised by this, one of the things that his dad always was most adamant about was that you should never live with regrets. He could remember many occasions how his dad would tell him how one of the worst things someone could live with looming over their head in life, was regret. “Always strive to remove any regret from your life Son”, he would tell John. As John looked down the page though, he began to realize his father’s lesson. Some of the first items on the list were broad and things that everyone lived with, “Too quick to anger”, “Too much junk food”, and so on. Though one hit him particularly hard in the chest, “Didn’t tell Dad I loved him enough before he died”, John’s eyes suddenly were swimming in salty tears. He had been thinking that same thing since he received the call just days earlier. He read on though, trying to blink the tears away. He read on through his dad’s apparent regrets and noticed that many of them were marked through with a red pen. “Never told Jenny Markson about my crush in the seventh grade”, “Walked past the homeless man on bleaker today and pretended I had no money on me”. John realized that these are things that his dad could have fixed, though the image of his dad calling up some grown woman, telling her about a crush he had on her in the seventh grade was another moment that made his whole body spasm with a level of cringe that only a parent could produce.

John continued to read through, impressed on how many of his dads regrets had been marked through over the years. Until John read one that made his eyes start to blur again. He read the words, “Give John the Future and Happiness he deserves”. John felt so many emotions all at the same time, he was crushed that his dad could possibly think that John felt anything but happiness about his life. His dad had given him everything, a childhood with a loving and attentive parent. Fun, after school activities, adventures, John could vividly remember hours of working on forts in the back yard of their old house on Bleaker Street. The place was a dump since his dad made so little money back then, but it was theirs and his dad made every day that he could an adventure. They even named the house “The Wasteland”, because the yard never seemed to be able to grow anything but patchy plots of weeds and grass. He could see in his mind his dad teaching him about model planes, Legos and train sets on the uneven living room floor. He could even remember how special he felt when his dad would break out his old Baseball Cards and teach him all about the different stats and players. He used to say, “Someday, these cards will really be something special”. Though John knew that already, they were special. Special memories that no one could ever take away from him, happiness that only his father was able to share with him. So the thought that his dad actually could think that it was possible that he in any way was not happy with his life, was a crushing blow on top of everything else.

To try to avoid getting upset he thought he would read through some more regrets that his dad had overcome over the years, and this worked for a few minutes until he came upon another piece of news that made his heart drop. Something that had never quite occurred to him until now popped out of the page at him. In bold letters was, “Lost Baseball Card Collection at The Wasteland”. The happy memories of just moments ago, that for such a long time had gone forgotten turned to ash in his mind as the darker side of that memory came crashing back. The image of a hot day in summer, about twelve years ago, just a year or so before they moved here to this nicer house and away from The Wasteland, John had managed to, in one of the most rare occasions of their household, make his dad angry enough to yell at him by ditching school and getting caught loitering and trespassing on private property. That sounds worse than it was really, John recalled that he skipped class with a friend and went to watch the clouds stroll by in a local rancher’s field. The day was great until they got caught and dragged home by the local police. John’s dad was furious, and since this was such a rare occasion, John did not know how to react. He locked himself in his bedroom and hid from the world, and more specifically from his Dad until it got dark. The whole time John was just stewing in his anger, getting angrier and angrier by the moment, trying to think of ways he could get back at his dad for making him feel so small.

The perfect thing came to mind, and it was evil. John was so mad that even though this was just not in his normal nature, he knew it would make his dad just as upset as he was now, so the deed must be done. His dad kept his baseball card collection in a small metal box on a shelf in the living room. Though he said it was his most prized possession, he never had any reason to hide them because it was such a small, nondescript box. He only kept a small collection of his favorite cards and the most favored card in the box by far was his 1933 George C Miller card. He kept it in a little plastic sheet protector that John had occasional made fun of, but his dad had always taken care of it. Calling the card “Near Mint”, which apparently meant that it was almost like new even though it was really, really old. He also kept the cards in a really dull box that was all black and made of a pretty heavy metal that was pretty durable even though it didn’t have a special lock or anything. So his mentality was even if people broke in, no one would bother taking it.

John remembered that he had snuck down in the late hours of the night and taken the box off the shelf. John had known of a small crawl space in the house in which you had to go through a small door that was kind of hidden in the back of the closet under the stairs. There was a way in on the outside of the house, but to get to this corner of the crawl space in between the dirt under the house and between the floor boards you had to go through this door and crawl on your belly for about ten feet before the opening. He had taken the box of baseball cards and taken them far into the recess of the house. He thought to himself that this would make his dad feel as upset as he did, and once his dad had felt his pain for a day or so he would then retrieve the box and his day would be none the wiser as to who and what had occurred. He stood back, marveled at his teenage genius and went back to bed, ready to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

John woke up still angry and was ready to see what his plans would bring around, though as the day moved forward and nothing happened, his temper started to cool. With his temper cooling, his plan started to seem less like the plan of an evil mastermind and that of a spoiled child in his head. Though with his dad home for the day all he could do was hope that nothing happened. He could feel the tension in the air, though his dad was none the wiser. All day, any time his dad would walk into the living room John would tense up, ready for the onslaught, but nothing came. In fact, for three days nothing came, though at the same time John could do nothing to retrieve the box either, as Johns father had taken to invading the living room. Every once in a while this would happen, his dad would just not go to the bedroom for days on end other than to change clothes. When John was younger he just thought he liked the couch, though now he knew it had something to do with his mother, though he didn’t know what. His mom had died years ago, but it still haunted his dad.

On the third day though, John’s dad was watching a Baseball game and suddenly from John’s room he heard the commotion. John’s heart sank, because at this point he had completely let his guard down. As John cleared the stairwell he saw his dad freaking out in the living room, “where are they, where are they” he was chanting under his breath. John felt miserable, but also terrified because he had never seen his dad like this. He was not about to tell him what happened now! So John played dumb, he thought to himself “Dad will calm down, I will tell him then”. John had convinced his dad that he had taken the cards with him to a friend’s house a week or two back, because he did do that often, though John hadn’t seen them since. His dad calmed down, but John felt that the wound was still too fresh and decided to wait. “Waiting is the best decision here” he told himself, “Dad will calm down, he will forget, then I can tell him. Just a week or two, tops”.

Over a decade later, here John sits, reading his dead fathers private and hidden journal and one of his last uncompleted regrets were Johns lie to him. John realized then that he had forgotten the cards existed until now, that he had never retrieved them from the crawl space and they had move here not long after that fateful lie. John had never felt so low. Not only had he just learned that his father felt that he had failed him, but John himself had also very seriously failed his father in making him live with regret for over a decade because of a really stupid lie. John laid down on his father’s bed now and cried. He had tried not to up to this point, not because he was “too manly to cry”, his dad actually always said to him, “Real men can show their emotion son, never forget that”. He had tried not to cry because he did not know if he could stop, but failing his dad now, after he knew there was nothing he could do to right the situation, was the last straw. John lain there, smelled the musky scent of aftershave, the clean smell of his bed, the dad smell that no kid ever forgets of their father, and cried until his eyes closed in sleeps warm embrace.

John woke up and his eyes were puffy with sleep and the aftermath of a brutal cry session. He sat there pondering what had occurred last night, looking at the little black notebook lying on the bed next to him. Looking at the mirror across the room and his disheveled look, looking back to the book and reading the word “Regrets”, seeing the sentence about the lost cards. He looked in the mirror again and could almost see his father telling him not to live with regret. He knew he would regret this forever. He picked up the notebook and grabbed a pen from the nightstand. He flipped to the last of regrets and under the last sentence he wrote his name and next to it he simply wrote “Disappointed my dad”. He got up and started walking downstairs immediately, he knew he was being crazy, he knew it was not quite logical. His dad had told him not to live with regret though, not to avoid ideas that made him uncomfortable. Plus this may be simpler than it sounded, Bleaker was just across town, “The Wasteland” was a lot closer than he had cared to realize. Maybe the person behind the door wouldn’t think someone knocking on their door in the middle of the week and climbing inside the walls of their house would be that crazy after all. Sure, no normal person would resist that offer right? He nervously laughed as he pulled onto the main street to cross town.

John looked at the old house now, parked across the street from his childhood home. It looked every bit as nightmarish as he remembered. Actually it looked a whole heck of a lot worse than it did in his memories. Whomever lived here now really had not bothered to take care of it at all, at least his dad had put time and effort into maintaining the building so it would not collapse on them in the middle of the night. There was a car without two of its tires sitting on cinder blocks in the drive way, the patchy weed yard had somehow managed to grown into little scraggly mounds of weeds that desperately needed mowing. He sighed to himself and said out loud in more of a prayer than an affirmation, “This is not going to blow up in my face.” As he stepped out of the car and slowly walked across the street he continued that as a kind of mantra, trying to remain brave for his dad as he took steps to the rhythm of the words.

He made it to the door and tried to ring the door bell, immediately noting that the button was broken off and the flat mechanism below where the button should be did nothing when pressed. He swallowed much harder than he thought he was going to and lightly tapped on the door. He realized for some reason it wasn’t much of a tap at all and admonished himself for being silly. He knocked on the door and heard yelling from inside “This is a great sign he said”. There was continued yelling when he heard running footsteps come towards the door. A young looking girl answered the door. Her glasses nearly falling off nose as she struggled to open the door enough to get a good look at the person knocking on their door. Judging from the look on her face this was clearly not something that happened often. The girl was clearly disheveled, somewhat dirty, and her glasses looked to be far too large for her head. Though she appeared to be nearly an adult, his appearance still reminded him of a child, meek and afraid. She barely used any words to say hello, though managed to say “What can we help you with”. John asked “Hi, I Know this is really weird, but I grew up in this house and lived here until about ten years ago. I was wondering if your parents were home? I was hoping to come in and look to see if there was something here from when I was a child.” The girl looked at John in obvious surprise, though in retrospect John realized he probably should have thought about this more before heading over here. He said to her, “I know it sounds weird, being from so long ago, but I hid it in a wall and I highly doubt anyone would have ever found it. I am trying to fulfill a wish for my dad who just died and it would really help me out if….” John was cut off by a large man who must have been at least six and a half feet tall and was morbidly obese, turned the corner coming from the living area. John’s nose immediately curled in disgust as this man smelled of something dying that was soaked in booze. He bellowed at both John and the girl “Sara, what have I told you! Just get rid of people you idiot! You aren’t good for nothing, get back to your room!” The girl looked at John with obvious fear in her eyes, and turned to run away from the door. The large man was lumbering toward the door and John began his speech with the man when the large man hurled his large mass against the door, slamming the door mere inches from Johns face and toes. John was shocked. In all the ways he had seen this going, having this behemoth of a man who smelt of a garbage dump try to flatten his face with a door was not what he expected. He nervously giggled as he quietly said to himself, “I think I would’ve been less surprised if he shot me”.

John was sitting in his car, pondering if there was anything he could do and staring down into his empty lap. He was thinking to himself about what he saw and wondered about the girl, as she looked him in the eyes before she ran the other direction, he thought , “was that dirt on her face? Or was it something else, it almost looked like a bruise.” As he sat lost in thought there was a light tap on the window. John had instant visions of the large man bursting through the window at him as he flailed back in terror of the tapping sound. He was now looking into the face of Sara, the young girl from The Wasteland. He could actually see a slight smile cross her face as the terror began to subside from his face. He rolled down the window, smiling at the girl, now feeling silly for nearly yelping at her tapping on the window. She whispered to him “Did I scare you mister?” John said to her, “No, I was break dancing. Isn’t that what people do in this part of town?” As he began to do “The Robot” with his arms for a moment. She giggled again and looked at him in the car. She looked at him for a moment and he looked at her, he thought to himself that he definitely now thought what he originally thought to be dirt next to her eye was the remnants of a black eye healing. She said to him next, “Is that story about your dad real? I mean, no one would make up that horrible of a story just to make it into a dump like this, so I have to know if it’s a real story.” John was the one who laughed this time. He said to her, “Oh trust me I wish it were, because if it were made up I would never have been here. I am way too boring for that.” She looked at him again for a moment and he felt judged, but didn’t really understand what was happening so he just went with it. After a moment she said to him, in far to chipper of a voice for the situation, “Ok, I am going to help you. I can’t let a story like that go unfinished”. John was taken completely by surprise, she had just directly went against what the terrifying beast inside had told her. He just stared at her and simply said, “Why?” She said, “I just told you! Gugh, if this is going to be the conversation, maybe I was wrong about you”. John snapped back into action, was he speaking to himself here? Was this some weird Wasteland dimension where there was a teenage girl version of himself?

John jumped out of the car and followed Sara across the street toward the back of the house. He whispered loudly to her, “Wait, isn’t the large man going to see me and like, eat me or something?” She actually laughed and said, “Who, my mom’s ex-husband in there? Heck no, he may be a lot of things, but sober, conscious and fast enough to catch anything but a cheeseburger are none of those things.” She added, “just be quiet once we get inside not to wake him up and we should be fine. So where are we going?” John told her about the little door in the closet under the stairs. She was surprised, but mentioned how there was always too much stuff in there to have seen the back of it, but she was confident that they could get to the back of it without any problem. As they creeped up the stairs through the back door, she put a finger to her lips to signal to be quiet now. They crept through the house, creaking floor boards the only witness to their trek across the room. As they passed through the kitchen he couldn’t help but notice the mess, he could tell that there was a minimal amount of cleaning happening here, but was not about to say anything or make a face. As they passed open doors as they crept down the hallway he snuck a glance in each room, a flood of memories mixing with horror of what had become of his childhood home. Though as they passed one room, his old bedroom in fact, he noticed that the only mess were books strewn across a desk and a couple of articles of clothing in the corner. It was clear this was Sara’s room, he couldn’t help by be impressed by this girl. Look at her surroundings. This man in the other room, this house, these living conditions, but then she had this wonderful demeanor and attitude and then apparently she even kept what little was hers in great shape and appeared to be a great study as well.

They reached the stair well and the door to the closet on its side, slowly they pulled the door open. John saw that Sara was not kidding, this closet was a disaster after all. There were boxes piled up at least four foot high with junk piled on top of every stack. There was just barely enough room for the two of them to squeeze in with enough room to possibly make a path to the back of the closet. They discussed a game plan and slowly started restacking the boxes in a way that would lead a path big enough to get to the little door in the back of the closet. They made decent progress, but this had quickly turned from a simple adventure into mission impossible. It felt like it was taking centuries to slowly move the mountain of boxes one by one across the little closet, so they could access the door in the back. They finally reached the door and Sara looked at it in surprise, she said in a low whisper “I wonder if he even knows that this is back here”. John reached down to open the little door, the door handle turned but the door was jammed. The imagined that the house was in such disrepair that the foundation had probably shifted enough to jam the door in place over the years. He pulled a bit harder and the door slid just a bit. Sara looked at John with a glint of excitement in her eyes. Encouraged by the slight movement and by possibly being so close to his goal he pulled harder, this time though it did not move. He was frustrated by this and began to pull harder still, Sara started to say “Carefu..” just as the door swung open hard. John lost his balance and fell back into the stack of boxes. John thought there must be nothing but bells in these boxes because a ringing and crashing sound that he thought would wake the gods sounded around him as he fell through the cardboard. As he landed, Sara and his eyes locked in shock as they both held their breath, waiting to see what would happen. Then they heard exactly what they both had feared was coming. “SARA! WHAT IS THAT RACKET!?” boomed through the walls, John could feel the words reverberating through the walls and his chest. “Is that really a man in there?” he thought to himself in abject horror now. John thought he was afraid, until he saw Sara’s face. Where moments ago she was this smart, tough, adventurous teenager who was absolutely determined to live out this adventure, he now saw a terrified child again. The look of fear in her eyes both terrified and enraged him. The transformation was so total and complete that he couldn’t move for a few moments, just stared at her as he saw the tears well up in her eyes and saw her hands start to shake. He asked himself “What has this girl lived through in this place?” he felt a rumble and a that was what it took to shake him out of his tumbled stupor on the boxes. He reached Sara as she was still staring off into space, clearly not in this reality. She had transported herself to another place almost instantly it appeared, a clear sign of an abuse that had shaken her to her core. John more felt that heard a crash that vibrated the floor and walls around him as he grabbed Sara’s arm and shook her. She startled, jerked and looked at John suddenly, flinching as she did so, taking a moment to realize who she was looking at. John told her, “We have got to move!” She tried to get him to go through the doorway, but he nearly pushed her over and yelled to her, “Start crawling forward and crawl through space in the back into the opening on the other side. Quickly!” Suddenly another booming scream through the house made them both jump, “SARA, YOU KNOW WHATS COMING IF I HAVE TO CHASE YOU”, booming and reverberating through the halls again. John began crawling behind Sara as she squeezed through the space between the closet and the opening beyond. Just as John was about to lose sight of the interior of the closet he saw the stinking Behemoth from a few minutes ago come crashing through the closet door. John noticed that the door didn’t just open, it just fell apart as the hulk of a man ran through it. The giant had smashed through the door, crushing anything beyond the door in its path. The great stinking beast fell to the ground with chunks of door. John crawled with all of his might, knees scraping the old wood as he crawled. His arms were through the opening and he could feel Sara pulling him from the other side. John made the mistake of looking back one last time, to see the man crawling through the small doorway behind him reaching his hands towards Johns kicking legs. John was much larger than he was as a child and he was not quickly making progress through the entrance to the opening beyond. John looked forward to see Sara’s terrified face pulling at his arms, struggling to help him. He looked back to see that the man was squeezed into the frame of the small door now, his massive girth not able to get any further through the tiny door. John felt a momentary surge of relief, though this was short lived as when he looked at the man’s face again it was not just that of a man, not just that of an enraged man, but the small amount of light that was now making it around the man’s gut into the small wooden chamber was lighting his face in a way that made John think of a rabid bear. The fear returned tenfold into John, just in time to see the giant man lunge one last single time for John’s leg. In his relief, he had relaxed just enough to let his leg lay flat, which meant when the giants hand reached out, there was just enough room for his massive hand to grab onto Johns foot. John immediately felt the pull in reverse as the giant tried to pull him backwards to him. It was now a fight from Sara, grasping John’s arms in the front and the giant rabid bear man behind him with the death grip on his shoe. John kicked frantically, but the man’s grip was getting tighter and tighter. John was screaming as well now, his foot felt like it was in a vice as he tried to kick the man’s hand. The man behind him let out another giant scream, “SARA!”, yet above everything else, John heard a crack and felt searing pain in his foot. In reaction, Johns other foot came down hard on the man’s hand and knocked his hand loose from John’s foot and John was able to scamper out of reach again. He wasn’t sure if it was the terror, adrenaline or Sara’s desperate pulling from in front of him, but he slowly slid through the entrance into the space beyond. The giant was not letting up though, as John looked behind into the chamber he just escaped he could see the man thrashing, hitting everything around him. Sara was screaming at him to stop and the beast of a man was thundering right back. John watched in horror for a moment, then realized that the man wasn’t just hitting, but smashing everything around him. John started to scream at the man too, “Man you have to stop, you can’t break that stuff! This place can’t take that kind of abuse!” The drunken man did not listen though, John heard another crack and he and Sara watched in horror as the man beyond the gap smashed through another piece of wood in the wall. Apparently it had been the last thing supporting the staircase above him, as suddenly everything that was above the man suddenly came down on top of him. John pulled Sara back from the opening as bits of wood and large puffs of dust came through the gap. They fell back against a wall and sat stunned, starring at the dark opening with the dust and shredded wood now poking through, that they had just crawled through. John could not believe what had just happened. He looked at Sara, not knowing what to expect. She just stared with a blank face at that gap, eyes open wide, mouth shut, just staring. They sat like this for a long moment, John had no idea what to say. There was no way, even a giant like that could have survived part of a building collapsing on him. They had been sitting there for minutes and had not heard the faintest sounds from that direction since the last bits of wood came to rest. So John just sat and waited.

After a few minutes their eyes began to adjust to the small amount of light coming in from the damaged wall and stairwell were Bob now lay. Sara looked at him and in a low voice said, “So there might be something back here?” John was pretty stunned, but had learned to just go with the flow when he could. He was disturbed by the events of the last few minutes, but his foot was swelling into the shape of his shoe because of the guy under the stairs and he probably would have killed them had the stairs not collapsed. So he came to terms with the fact that she was ok, so he would be there for her right now and deal with his own issue about it later. He replied “Oh you know what, now that I think about it, it must be the house across the street that I stashed the treasure in the wall”. He looked her in the eye, not sure if his weak attempt at humor would make sense at such an awkward time. She looked right back at him with a smile and said, “Well of course, every house on this block has a secret little room in the walls from no reason whatsoever, that makes all the sense in the world!”. He laughed and agreed, “See I knew you would understand, thanks so much”. They laughed for a moment and he pointed to the corner behind her with the light on his phone.

He had noticed it after the dust had all settled, but he thought it might be slightly insensitive of him to be like, “Hey I know I literally just brought your house down, but look, there’s my box in your wall!” So when she asked he pointed to it sitting in the corner, right where he had stupidly left it all those years ago. She reached over and grabbed the little box and blew the dust off of it. She said, “Ok, I thought you were just a creepy old guy, but now I think you are just a creepy old guy with some really cool stories to tell me”, they both laughed hard at that one. He went on to tell her all about the childhood he had in this house, how they called it “The Wasteland”, how his dad had been great, how he had just died, about the notebook and his dad’s advice about regrets. They even talked about her life, how her mom had passed away a few years ago after she had married Bob out there. Bob had treated Sara like a prisoner ever since, beaten her, starved her, treated her like a maid, cook and everything in between. She even made some really intelligent jokes about the likeness to Cinderella and called Bob the wicked stepfather, though using the word stepfather was too good for him she said. She just wanted to do well enough in school to head off to college and make something of her life, like her mother wanted for her. She wanted to make her mom proud, John could resonate with that. Turns out, that is why she had let John into the house in the first place. His story about his dad dying hit a chord with her and gave her the strength she needed to defy Bob for just a moment. They talked for almost two hours before it came to the story about how the box got into the wall and she asked “So what is actually in this box that is worth almost dying for?” He sighed, a little tear in his eye and took the box. He slowly opened it and just like so many times in his youth, there on top of a tiny stack of cards was his dad’s prized possession. The 1933 George C Miller Baseball card. She looked at John, then the cards, then at John and said, “Are you serious? All of this, for some baseball cards? Sports, guy stuff? I was thinking pirate loot, or at least a treasure chest! Come on make it cool!” She smiled, trying to egg John on he could tell. It was odd how he felt like this girl that he just met was someone he had known forever, he couldn’t shake that feeling of familiarity.

He said, “Actually, these cards really are cool. Not only, are they rare. Not only, are they in fantastic condition, largely in part because they were hidden in a wall for a decade. Though they are very cool because these cards are actually worth a ton of money. Also because they were my dad’s and he thought they were lost forever, I can bring them home and put them back in their rightful place.” He pulled out the Miller card on the top and said, “Just this card by itself, could probably go for $20,000”. Sara’s jaw dropped, “Are you kidding me? People pay that much for some of these?” She looked at the box like it came from outer space or something at this point. “Yeah, actually some cards go for Millions, though this was my dad’s favorite, he always said it would do something special. I am not even sure what else is in here or what they would be worth, but I imagine there are some neat ones in here”.

They sat in silence for a moment, Sara in stunned silence, a look of surprise and wonder, John reminiscing again of years gone by. They both ended up staring at the gap in the wall at the same time and said almost in unison “How are we going to get out of here?” So after some very awkward calls to the police, some interrogating that included asking a grown man why he was literally in the closet wall with an underage girl and a lot more time talking with Sara. He was finally home. He was cleared of any charges and everything was deemed to be legitimate given he was invited into the house and it was obvious by the broken foot and the remains of “Bob” the giant, the he had managed to actually bring down the house on himself. This though really put Sara in a bind, she spent the next few days in Child Protective Custody in a foster home while they figured out a more permanent situation for her. It looked like she would be going into foster care for the foreseeable future, though she was already 17 and was only months away from graduating high school, was in the top 5% of her class and had a very bright future ahead of her if she could get into a good college. John brought the cards home from The Wasteland after all those years and put them on the mantel next to a picture of his dad. He told his dad while looking at the picture, “Look, I messed up, but here are your cards. They are home safe and they will never be mistreated again. I am sorry that you regretted not having them, I am sorry I put that on you, but just know that they are here now and always will be. Oh, and also, yet again you were right! It was a great idea engraving your name on the inside of the box. Turns out having your name inside the box was a great way of proving they were yours, and therefore are now mine. Even all these years later, always right”. He went upstairs to the notebook, flipped to the Regrets section and scratched through the regret about losing the cards at the wasteland through with red marker and smiled. He then looked at what else his dad has written, “Give John the Future and Happiness he deserves”. He stared at that line and thought back to his life and saw his life with his dad, saw his life with his friends and at work, his career even his little apartment. John thought to himself, “You know what dad, I really am happy and you gave me a great future. You gave me everything I needed to be who I am today and you gave me the best dad anyone could ask for. You may not have believed it at the time, but you better be watching this from wherever you are.” John grabbed the red marker and crossed three big lines through his dads regret. John was happy, and he knew his father’s lessons well.

A few days later Sara and her social worker came by John’s house, they had become quite close since the day they had met and given the special circumstances surrounding her foster care situation she had already been through three foster homes. Seeing John had become a great relief for Sara as well, she had immediately attached to John because they turned out to be so alike. The three of them were sitting at John’s kitchen table, eating some lunch, laughing about some cheesy joke that John had laid out when the John asked Sara about the permanent living situation. Sara said “They still don’t know, I have been to three different houses. Don’t get me wrong they have all been better than Bob’s house, but not having a place to stop is messing with my schooling and I really need to get into that scholarship program.” John gave a half smile and said, “that has got to be rough, I am so sorry. I have always heard the system is so hard to deal with”. He walked to the kitchen counter and grabbed the small box that was sitting there. He said, “You know how I told you about all my dad’s little lessons, about not living with regret?” Sara replied, “Yeah, we were kind of locked in a windowless room, how could I forget” and laughed a bit. John laughed too and smiled as he walked back to the table with the box. He said, “Well, even as I was telling my dad about our adventure in the wall and brush with death thanks to Bob the giant, even as I told him that his cards were home with him again and I was finally able to scratch off two of his biggest regrets on his list”. He took a moment and looked at the box and then at her and continued, “Even as all this happened I knew that I was not really following his lessons correctly. He regretted not giving me a future and making me happy. He gave me both of those things, he pushed me forward to become the best man I could be. Taught be to be a hard worker, to be funny, to be passionate, to be a good person, he gave me all the tools I needed to have a wonderful future. He also gave me years of happiness! I don’t think he recalled the hundreds of hours playing together and of him making me laugh when he wrote that down. I really don’t think I could have been a happier child, or a happier adult for it. Sure there are times life gets you down, beat up, makes things just flat out suck. But you know what, for all those times there is usually a story to tell about a time where things didn’t suck. You know what else, I have hundreds of those stories to bore you with now that you will be moving in here.” John stopped here, so he could gauge her reaction, he knew that he felt this bond with her but was only guessing so far as to if she felt the same connection as he did. As he looked to see if there was any emotion in her eyes she started to cry and jumped into his arms from across the table. They hugged and it felt like a hug from his dad, it felt like a hug from his mom, he could only describe it like a hug from family, from his sister.

They talked for a while longer after the commotion about this news calmed down, hashing out details, but John explained that after his “talk with dad” as he called it, he realized that his dad was still making him happy even now by arranging meeting her. He explained that once he realized that, he immediately contacted her DHS case worker and arranged all the paperwork, house checks and finalized the arrangements the day before. “You aren’t just visiting today Sara, you’re moving in” John said excitedly. He had the box sitting to the side this whole time and he brought it forward now. She asked about the cards said “Is your dad happy they are home?” John laughed and said, “Yeah, but you know what? Not as happy as I thought he would be. Not as happy as I thought I would be either. You know how I said that dad always told me that George here would be very special someday?” as he pulled out the 1933 George C Miller card. Sara squinted and said “Yeah…” in a very suspicious tone. John went on, “Well I contacted a friend of mine, who knows a guys who knows a guy. Well not really, I just know a guy. Anywise, he appraised it and George here really is worth about $20,000. So next week, you and I are going to go down to his shop and make the transaction final. Then take that money down to the bank and put it all into an account for your college fund.” Sara’s eyes popped open wide and her jaw dropped. John noticed that the Social workers jaw dropped too, John hadn’t bothered to tell her that part when they arranged the new living arrangements. He didn’t want that being any part of the reason why they approved or even possibly denied the arrangements.

Sara stared at John for what seemed like an hour when she finally said, “what?” John said “Well dad regretted that he supposedly wasn’t able to give me what I needed to have a bright future or be happy. He also taught me to be kind and live like he did, which means always do kindness for others and happiness will find its way back to you. Well I realized that you did not have my dad, that you had no one to help you obtain the future and happiness you deserve. I felt wrong just putting these cards on a mantel, when I know that my dad would never had stood by and watched. So I am following dads advice, I am not going to live with the regret of watching this just pass by. I would regret not helping you achieve the future and happiness that you deserve, Sara”, he smiled at Sara, and added “and honestly I don’t know how to erase red marker from the notebook so I really didn’t have any option…” He gasped as the wind got knocked out of him as she wrapped him in another hug. John hugged her back and thought back to only a week ago, losing his dad was one of the worst moments of his life so far, but looking back through his lessons, through his love, through every moment he spent with his dad over the years he realized that everything his dad had done and taught him had been a blessing in his life. Just over a week after losing what felt like everything and being alone he had a family again, and he knew that he could never regret that. As he stood hugging his new found sister, he wondered if his dad was somehow responsible for everything like he always seemed to be. John whispered looking out to the mantel in the living room and said “Thanks dad” to the smiling face of his father watching him and his new sister Sara start their new lives together.