In the cold ashes of 1988, a year of firsts for me, my grandmother rang up to invite me over. Not my brother and I, not my whole family, just eighteen-year-old me.
She’d never done that before.
But it was the way she hurried me inside, all pink and excited, that hinted at something big. And her appearance confirmed my suspicions.
My fashionable grandmother, with her whiter-than-white hair and beautiful clothes, had been replaced by a dust-covered, laughing old lady with secrets in her eyes.
“Guess. Guess what I found.” She hid one soft, veiny hand behind her back.
I threw out a few random guesses, all wrong.
Her lips curved into a charming, pixie smile.
I considered the facts. To get that dirty, she must have excavated an object from the depths of her home. Something dazzling, most likely valuable, knowing her. She wasn’t keen on gifts, so it couldn’t be for me. I shot her another glance.
Bottled energy leaked from her. She was dying to talk.
“Oh, don’t make me wait,” I said. “What did you find?”
With the ease of a magician, she whipped her hand out, revealing a bundle of cash. She arranged the dollar bills into a fan.
Only they weren’t singles. They were twenties. And there were more of them than I could easily count.
“A thousand dollars. A thousand!” She crowed. “I always thought your Grampa hid money in the house. And I was right!”
I stared at the cash. As a poor college kid, it was more money than I’d ever seen in my life.
Her cheeks glowed with triumph. Leaning forward, she said, “How do you feel about a treasure hunt?”
All my guilt over not checking on her after Grampa’s funeral vanished. This was going to be fun. And oh, how we could both use a good dose of fun.
“So here’s what we’ll do,” she said, the businesswoman in her taking charge of the situation. “We’re going to tear this place apart.”
I blinked at her.
“I have a feeling about the closet. So we’ll start there. Your knees are young, so you’ll search under the carpets. I’ll do everything else.”
She rocketed away, me trailing behind. I couldn’t help glancing around her vacuumed and tidy house as we traveled to the bedrooms. Where she’d picked up all that dust remained a mystery.
My grandparents slept apart, as both snored, and well, that worked for them. They’d designed and built this home, along with every house on the street. I remembered the orange groves, the huge piles of sand, and the markers where future houses would go. I’d even watched some of them go up, but hadn’t thought much about their interiors.
“How many bedrooms and closets do you have?” I asked. “And did he really hide money?”
She stopped. “Only one closet, two bedrooms. And lots of people hide money. The Depression, you know. Watch a few banks collapse, and you learn to keep cash on hand. Hurry up, we can talk while we hunt.”
We traipsed into my grandfather’s room, and the air quality changed. Gone was the slight perfumed scent of her home, replaced by a stale, unfamiliar odor. Sunlight poured in from a side window, illuminating the dust on the dresser and nightstand. The bed was made, with a comforter that spoke more of Grandma’s taste than his. But oh, the hats! Well-worn hats hung from pegs embedded into the walls, each one triggering a different memory. Flashes of Grandpa outside, gathering oranges from his grove, riding a lawn mower, and driving his truck. And of him watering the trees, one hand holding onto a long green garden hose, while the other waved to me and my dad.
Grandma tugged my sleeve. Her head cocked to one side as she regarded me.
I took a breath, surprised at my grief. Grief that I saw echoed in the depths of her eyes and etched onto her lovely, powdered face. At eighteen, I didn’t know how to talk about something as profound as loss.
Stepping forward, I tapped one of the hats. “I remember him in these. Where he was, how much he enjoyed Florida. But I had no idea there were so many of them.”
We stood in silence, apart yet together. Eventually, she leaned forward to caress one of the hats. “This was one of his favorites.”
Thick lumps of dust, churned up from activity under the bed, caught my eye. The missing piece of the puzzle snicked into place. “You found the money here? Under the bed?”
She evaded the question. “Let’s search the closet. I think something’s there. The carpet wiggles.”
Grandma flung open a door to reveal her home’s only closet. It was a huge, walk-through affair, that ran like a corridor between the two bedrooms. A lifeline connecting two very different people. My gruff Grampa and his bright, energetic, beautiful wife. She pushed past the hanging clothes, coming to a halt at the end nearest her own room. She began rummaging around on the top shelf.
I sank down to the floor. Both old and new shoes, perched on top of a low rack, stretched the entire length of the closet. Underneath them, a layer of grime coated the carpet. But only on Grampa’s side. I smiled, understanding the message. That dirt said she respected his privacy, respected it enough to leave his things untouched.
Peering underneath the rack, I got a good grip and tugged at the carpet. Sure enough, it lifted right up at the corner. Excitement thrilled through me. The hunt was on!
I reached with both hands under the flap.
The textured bottom was rough, scratching my hand as my fingers scrabbled against the bare concrete underneath. At last, I felt something, a lumpish object. I scooped it out and stood upright.
An old, seamy leather wallet, warped from holding wads of cash, sat snugly in my hand. It breathed of age and frequent use. And the promise of forgotten money.
“Well, open it!” Grandma stood right next to me, pressing so close I could feel her breath on my cheek.
I peeled the billfold apart. Two business cards and a yellowed newspaper article huddled inside. Nothing more.
A sigh escaped her, and she shook her head. “Well, keep looking.” Disappointment drenched her voice.
Surprised at her lack of curiosity, I stared at her. Light from the far bedroom outlined her frame and white hair, leaving her features dark. Indistinguishable. Mysterious.
I’d always known my grandmother, and yet, I realized that I’d never known her. Not as a person, in her own right.
I plucked out the article and unfolded it. A black-and-white picture of a man stared up at me. He was young, around my own age, and in full uniform. “It’s my dad! When he was promoted to captain.”
“Keep it,” she said, her hands busy checking boxes.
I tucked it into my pocket. All these years, Grampa had treasured this article. Maybe for the words, or maybe for the photo itself. For that glimpse of an oldest son, off fighting a war in distant lands.
I examined the tattered business cards. “Hey, these aren’t recent. They’re for the old skating rink.”
She paused, her hand hovering mid-air between two boxes. Curiosity snagged at last.
I set the wallet down. “Tell me about the rink.”
She spoke of their young married life in New York, and of how they’d run their own rollerskating rink. Of their quick sandwich dinners between helping customers. And of how her sons – my dad and uncles – had helped run the place. Long before they’d packed up and moved to Florida.
Her face swallowed by darkness, she said, “You know, your Grampa used to be like your dad. Just like him. Easy to be with, laughing, good company. And then his back got hurt. The pain was terrible. It changed him.”
“Couldn’t they give him medicine?”
“Oh, he wouldn’t take morphine. He didn’t want it to ruin him. You know, addiction isn’t new. Young people think it is, but it isn’t. My family was wealthy, once. A long time ago. But then my father threw it all away for drugs. We lost everything.” She turned, and light fell on her profile. She wasn’t crying, and nothing of emotion played on her face. She was just my lovely grandmother.
Only she wasn’t.
She was a young woman who’d survived childhood, both poverty and sorrow. And at the same time, a grown woman who’d loved fiercely, worked hard, and enjoyed life.
“When I first met Ellis,” she said, “I fell in love with his family first. Isn’t that funny? But they were so different from mine. They gathered together to eat meals. They laughed and actually conversed at the table. About politics, and business, and issues that mattered.”
I mulled that over, trying to understand. “But that’s normal. Isn’t it? What was your family like?”
“Not like that,” she said. She yanked out one of Grampa’s coats and dug in the pockets. First one, then the other. Then she ran her hands over the inside lining. Her hands froze, then scrambled.
Excitement bubbled within me. “Find something?”
She hurried over, and we oohed over a plump handful of twenty dollar bills. She stuffed it in her pocket, then went back to searching the coats.
She continued, “There were four of us children. My brother – you know he died young – and my sisters and me. When we had bacon, my father ate it all. My mother made grease sandwiches for my brother, and we girls, well.” She paused, then went on. “We got cocoa sandwiches. Yes, cocoa. That’s what we had. Sugar sandwiches, if we managed to get rations.”
Outraged, I gaped at her. “That’s not fair!”
She looked away. “It’s just the way it was.”
I realized how silly I’d sounded. Life wasn’t fair, never had been. The gap in years and experience yawned between us.
She moved on to another jacket, intent on the hunt. “I got to stay with an aunt for a summer. She lived in a huge house, a mansion. She had such beautiful things. I wanted to live there forever. I hoped she’d adopt me.” Her hands kept moving, searching and searching.
“Did she?”
Methodically, she checked another jacket. Finally, she said, “No. No, she didn’t.” Echoes of pain rang in her words, softened by the decades, but still there.
I averted my gaze.
“Check the shoes. Deep down inside,” she instructed.
Obediently, my hands slid into the shoes and under them and then down to pat the carpet. A cramp started up in my leg, so I stood up and walked it out. “Grandma, you did check under Grampa’s bed, right?”
“Maybe.”
I laughed. Reaching out, I removed a cobweb from her hair.
“Switch places, so I can get to those jackets,” she said.
I crawled around her, and she squeezed past me. Something white caught my attention, and I frowned. I bent down to check it out. The material wasn’t right. Neither canvas nor leather, it was big and lumpy and oddly smooth. I clambered upright and trotted into the light to inspect my find.
“Whoa, this is heavy. Grandma, what is this?”
“Ah,” she said. “Well.” Her cheeks grew pink.
I rotated it. It looked like a plaster foot. A whole foot, including toes. And it was ginormous.
“It’s a foot, dear. Grampa’s foot.” She sighed. “He hated going shoe shopping. So I had your uncle make a cast.”
The mind boggled. “But why?”
“Well, so I could try shoes onto the foot.”
“You carried that thing into the store? And put shoes onto it?”
“Well, I did put it in a box. And then carried the box into the store.” Her brow furrowed. “People can’t go around barefoot, you know.”
I gaped at the plaster monstrosity, trying to imagine her fitting footwear onto it, one shoe after another.
Wiping her forehead, she sat on the bed. I realized, with a pang, that she must be wearing out. I said, “Do you want a break?”
She sighed. “It’s almost lunchtime. Probably smart to stop.”
The bed creaked as I sat next to her. “You know, it felt like Grampa was here with us. At least for part of the time.”
She smiled, and we sat in silence for a while, drinking in the memories. At last, she stood and we said our goodbyes.
She didn’t share her cash discoveries, and I hadn’t expected her to. She never had been one for giving presents. What my grandmother enjoyed, much more than gifts, was sharing experiences.
**
I never forgot that day.
When I think back to my grandmother, I remember that time the best. The way my grandfather provided for her even after he’d gone. And how he’d gifted me with something more valuable than money.
The joy of a rare morning getting to know my grandmother.
