The Last Adventure

My 29th year had been a tough one. My old hound passed away. And my boyfriend left me after 5 years because he didn’t want to be with a deadbeat. His words, not mine.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have ambition. It’s just that what brought me joy didn’t pay much. I was a server at a small diner downtown and a housecleaner. Yes, I went to college. But I hadn’t found a high-paying job I loved. I was happy with what I was doing. He was the one who was unhappy. And I knew it was coming.

“You’re stuck in a rut, barely making enough money to support yourself! What happened to your dreams? Our dreams?” he said one night, after I had cancelled plans to volunteer at the animal shelter. I’d supposed we didn’t have shared dreams anymore. He told me to move out.

So that is how I found myself living with my parents at 29 years old.

“If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money?” Mrs. McArthur brought me out of my thoughts and back to my dusting.

“I don’t know, depends on how much I win,” I replied.

She was always asking me big questions like this while I cleaned her house, as if constantly talking about big, crazy ideas would make them suddenly come true.

“A large amount, $100 million.”

I thought for a minute. Honestly, that amount of money was too much for me to fathom. I would pay off my debts and probably give most of it away. But that answer wouldn’t be fun enough for her.

“I’d pay off my parents’ house and buy them a sailboat.”

“You would still have a lot of money left over,” she said, waiting for more.

“I’d take them traveling around the world. Buy myself a house, on a lot of land. Get a new car. Not sure what else. Wouldn’t want to spend it all at once.”

“That’s a good start.”

She seemed lost in thought, so I moved into the library to continue dusting. A few minutes later, she wandered in and planted herself in the overstuffed recliner.

This was our routine. Every Tuesday I would go to Mrs. McArthur’s house to clean. I would start with the kitchen and bathrooms, then dusting, washing windows, and vacuuming. Mrs. M followed me from room to room, asking me endless questions that started with “What would you do if” and “Would you rather”, then pondering my answers while muttering to herself. I had started cleaning houses for extra cash a couple of years ago. Mrs. McArthur’s house was one of my newest, but it felt like I had known her forever.

Mrs. M was a widow that lived in the smallest house on the rich side of town. Though it was the smallest, it was still larger than the house I grew up in. She and her husband owned several small companies that brought a lot of business to the area. My parents said they must have been a very money-savvy couple, as they had both come from nothing and somehow owned half the town.

“What if you won a smaller amount, say $20,000?”

Hmm. What would I do with $20,000? I would say put it towards my student loans, but that would barely make a dent and that answer bored even me. Investing it would be smart, but I don’t know anything about stocks or bonds.

“I would use it to open a coffee shop. I’d only sell simple coffee, no fancy lattes or frappes. Just good coffee with good flavor from sustainable farms. A portion of every coffee sold would be donated to dogs in need around the country. The shop would be really cozy, lots of places for people to sit and work, read, or write. Along one wall would be books that could be borrowed. I would hold events there, speakers and poetry readings. Anything to build a creative and supportive community. In the back of the shop would be a stone wall garden, covered in ivy, with lots of nooks to sit and read among the trees and flowers.”

I paused, dusting over my favorite section of leather-bound books. Mr. McArthur had been a big reader and collected quite a few first editions over his lifetime. They were kept in perfect condition and I took extra care when dusting them. I slowly glanced across the gold, fading names of the authors. Austen, Alcott, Bronte. How I wish I could curl up with one of these classics and a warm blanket, next to Charlie, just like we used to do. My eyes always hesitated at the spine of a thin, black book with no name. I was curious which book it was, but felt too shy to ask or touch it without permission.

“I would have guessed a new wardrobe or maybe an Alaskan cruise.”

I looked at Mrs. M and smiled. “I didn’t even tell you the best part.”

“What’s that?” she asked, eager for more. The bigger the dream, the better, in her opinion.

“I would foster dogs and bring them to the coffee shop with me. They could play in the gardens or cuddle up in front of the fireplace with the shop-goers. I think this would help more dogs get adopted into loving homes. Once people meet them, they won’t be able to resist taking them home.”

Mrs. M sat quietly, staring out the window that overlooked the gorgeous gardens she still kept. She had me to clean the inside of the house but the gardens were all hers. Even at 90 years old, she was still tending to the flowers all on her own.

I finished dusting the library before I spoke. “What would you do if you won the lottery?”

“Oh honey, I did win the lottery.”

“I thought you and your husband made your wealth from building up the town.”

“We were given a gift. And we were given each other. That was better than any amount of money that can be won in a lottery.”

Her eyes were still on the garden, but I could tell she was seeing something that I couldn’t.

“Fetch the little black book for me, will you?” she asked suddenly.

I walked to the leather-bound books, certain she meant the mystery book I'd wondered so much about. I pointed to it. “This one?”

“Yes, dear. Thank you.”

Slowly, I pulled the book off the shelf, careful not to disturb the other books. I caught a glimpse of 3 golden letters at the bottom corner of the front cover. RWM. It was a journal.

As I handed the journal to Mrs. M, she looked me straight in the eye. “Have you ever been in love?”

I could see Charlie’s face in my mind. “I lost the love of my life this year.”

“What happened?”

“It was his time to go. And even though I knew it was coming, it didn’t make it any less painful.”

“My Ralph, once he got sick, told me, ‘My life is yours, but my death is mine. Don’t spend the rest of your years grieving. Find a new adventure and tell me all about it when I see you again.’”

“He sounds like he was a wonderful man.”

“Best man I ever met. Selfless and adventurous. He used to write riddles and scavenger hunts for me. Even when we visited a new city, somehow he would have the perfect mystery for me to unravel already written. One that would take us to the best kept secrets. I never knew how he did it.”

I smiled at the life that appeared in her eyes as she talked about her husband. A liveliness I haven’t known in myself since Charlie.

“Ralph was drafted into the war. A terrible soldier he was. He loved people too much to fight. Never fired his gun once. Instead, he looked out for the other men and did his best to save as many as he could. He learned how to stitch wounds and stop bleeding. He carried those he couldn’t care for to the medic. He stayed with the men who only had minutes left, showing them love and kindness in their final moments.”

She opened the book and slowly turned a few pages. Although the spine of the journal was thin, it was packed with letters and pictures. She stopped at one photograph, of a young man and woman sitting at the lunch counter of the old diner downtown. The first business they started together.

“Once, he came across an injured man in a field, hours after the battle had finished. He couldn’t help the man, but he carried him 5 miles to the nearest medical tent. He thought he lost him a few times during the long journey. But Ralph talked to him the whole way, telling him stories of the big plans he had for his life when he returned home. The man survived.

“A few years after the war, Ralph and I were in our new home, newly married, and a man knocked on our door. It was the man Ralph had carried for 5 miles. He was the only child of a wealthy businessman. He had tracked down Ralph to thank him for saving his life. He presented him with a leather-bound journal ‘to write down all his stories’, shook his hand, and left. Inside the journal was a check for $20,000.”

Mrs. McArthur closed the journal and held it out to me. “The gift he gave us changed our lives. Ralph and I never forgot where our true fortune came from. I want you to have this. It contains all of the best memories with the love of my life.”

I took the journal from her. “Don’t you want to keep this? It means so much to you.”

“Dear, I’ve read it a thousand times. It’s the best story in this house. I can tell how much you love a good book by how kindly you have handled mine over the last year. You have a very kind heart, for people and dogs as well. I think this would be a good inspiration for your next adventure.”

“Mrs. M, I’m just a housecleaner.”

“And I’m just an old widow. And this is just an old book.”

I opened the book and glanced at a few other photos of the young McArthur’s. “He was so handsome.”

“Do you have a picture of your love?”

I pulled out my phone and scrolled to my favorite picture of Charlie and me. It was taken on a hike several years ago. We were in the middle of the mountains, trees surrounding us. I had knelt down to pet Charlie, rubbing his long ears between my fingers as I always did. He leaned into me, his eyes closed, enjoying the sun on his face. I leaned in to kiss the top of his head just as my friend snapped this photo of us. The best, most gentle hound there ever was.

“Love exists in many forms.”

That night, as I sat on my childhood bed in my parent’s house, a 29-year-old with big dreams and no plan, missing my boy, I flipped through Ralph’s old journal. It contained all of the riddles and scavenger hunts they went on around the world, with a picture for every trip. On the last page, in Mrs. M’s handwriting, it said, To my love. Thank you for the adventure of a lifetime. And to Madeleine, may you never forget the fortune that follows kindness. Taped to the inside back cover was a check, addressed to me, for $20,000.