The Silver Suitcase

by Terrie Todd

  “Corrie, dear, this is Henry’s father.” Eva stroked Cornelia’s hair. “I’m afraid we’ve come with some awful news.”

  Cornelia looked up at Samuel Roberts. His eyes reminded her of Henry’s, but whereas his son’s eyes always held a teasing twinkle, Samuel’s reflected only sadness. He remained silent.

  “We’ve lost Henry,” Eva whispered. “We’ve lost our boy.”

  Cornelia took a step backward. “What do you mean, lost him?”

  “We wanted to come tell you ourselves, before you heard it some other way,” Samuel said. “May we come inside?”

  Suddenly Cornelia felt like she was twelve years old again, as if her father was crying and trying to explain to her that her mother was dead.

  “No. Don’t come inside. Don’t—”

  Suddenly she realized that her father was behind her. He wrapped one arm around Cornelia and reached his other toward Henry’s father.

  “Charles Simpson,” he said. Cornelia watched the awkward handshake as her father put out his right hand to shake Mr. Roberts’s left, the only hand the man had. “Please come inside and warm up.”

  When she looked back later, the next thing Cornelia would remember from that day was sitting at the kitchen table as her father and brother hovered nearby. Someone placed a blanket around her shoulders. Cornelia felt faintly aware of a kettle whistling on the stove, and of her father pushing a hot cup of tea into her hands. She stared at the cup, as if trying to recall what one did with tea. Something inside her head screamed at her to wake up. Surely this was the most horrible dream of her life.

  But it was not. Henry’s parents were standing there, in her kitchen, and they had driven a hundred miles to tell her the news in person. On December 10, aboard a train bound for Halifax—from which he had been scheduled to set sail for England with the First Canadian Division—Henry had been killed in a train wreck.

  A train wreck! How was this possible? To join the army and go to war was one thing, but to not even make it to that war was unthinkable. What valor was there in that? Cornelia closed her eyes, and all she could see was Henry, smiling so proudly in his uniform the night before he shipped out. The best and worst night of her life.

  And now she sat alone, left with her own train wreck. Henry’s parents were kind to come tell her in person. “We know you two loved each other,” Eva said. “And we wanted to be near the girl who captured our son’s heart.”

  They offered to take Cornelia back to the city with them, where there would be a funeral for Henry in two days. Cornelia heard the pain and loss in their voices, saw the agony on their faces. She appreciated them involving her, but felt certain their compassion would be short-lived when they learned what only she knew.

  Because, for this moment at least, she was the only person on the planet aware that she carried Henry’s child.

  PART 2

  Benita

  The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me . . .

  Psalm 138:8

  CHAPTER 11

  Winnipeg, Manitoba

  March 2006

  Sunlight caught the prisms Benita Watson had hung in her kitchen window, creating tiny rainbows that danced around the walls and appliances. She gathered after-school snack dishes left on the kitchen table by Katie-Lynn and James. Doing the work herself was less bother than calling her nine- and seven-year-olds back to the kitchen and making them clean up their own mess. She loaded the plates into the dishwasher with a sigh.

  “So what do we do now?” she muttered, closing the door of the machine and picking up the unpaid bills that were piled on the counter. The last of Ken’s severance paychecks had been deposited, and no new work had presented itself. Benita’s part-time earnings from her job at the corner store helped the family, but if Ken’s employment situation didn’t change soon, they were going to be in deep trouble. The theme song from an old sitcom drifted in from the living room where her husband and children were lounging on the couch and floor.

  I hate him.

  She tried to shake the thought, but since Ken’s layoff, it had popped into her mind more frequently with each passing day. Why wasn’t he making more effort to find work? Couldn’t he see how hard she struggled, how she dreaded becoming the family’s sole provider?

  When the phone jangled, Benita called to the kids to turn down the TV.

  “Hello? Oh, hi, Mom.” The laugh track from the television still overpowered her mother’s voice. “Can you hang on a minute?”

  Benita held the receiver against her shoulder and called into the living room again. “James! Katie-Lynn! I asked you to turn down the TV!” She waited for the volume to subside before putting the phone back to her ear.

  Grace Gladstone’s voice sounded unusually weak. “Benita, honey, I’ve got bad news. It’s your grandma Cornelia. She’s suffered a stroke.”

  Benita sat on the nearest chair and gripped the edge of the table with her free hand. “A stroke? How bad is it?”

  “She might not pull through, honey. In fact, her doctor seems fairly certain she won’t. I thought you might want to see her . . .”

  The tiny rainbows circling the room seemed to grow and wrap Benita in a confusing matrix of color and light. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on what she’d been told. Breathe, she reminded herself.

  “Benita?” Grace said.

  “Yeah, I’m here.” Benita tried to steady her voice.

  “We knew this would happen sooner or later, honey.”

  “But Mom, I just saw her yesterday. She was fine. We’re working together on a quilt for Katie-Lynn.” She fiddled with the dish towel hanging from one shoulder.

  “I know, she told me. This is how it goes sometimes, sweetie.”

  “She can recover, right? Lots of people do. I mean, she’s only—”

  “She’s eighty-four, Benita.”

  “—yeah, she’s only eighty-four. Lots of people live to ninety-five or even older these days.” Benita tucked the phone into the crook of her neck and started to vigorously polish the toaster with her towel. Anything to hold back the panic that threatened to erupt.

  “Yes. Lots of people do. Do you want to see her? We’re on our way to the hospital now.”

  “We? Who’s with you?” Benita’s parents had divorced when she was only three, and her mother never remarried. Never even dated anyone, as far as Benita knew.

  “I’ve picked up Uncle Jim and we’re en route. I can swing by your place if you want to come with us.”

  Benita took a deep breath before answering. “Yes. Okay. Should the kids come?”

  “Not if Ken’s there to stay with them. They won’t let the kids in anyway, and even if they did, I’m not sure they should see her like this. It won’t be the Gram they know.”

  Suddenly it dawned on Benita that her mother could be losing her mother. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  A short pause. “We do what we have to do. We’ll be there in five minutes.” The phone went dead.

  Ken wandered into the kitchen, and when Benita explained the situation, she was surprised to see his eyes well with tears.

  “I don’t know when I’ll get back. Can you cook a frozen pizza for yourself and the kids, please? And there are carrot sticks and apples in the fridge. Where’s my jacket? And James has to finish his reading practice. I need my purse. Katie-Lynn’s grounded from the phone and the computer—”

  Ken took Benita in his arms. “Just go, we’ll be fine. Tell Gram we love her, and we’ll come see her as soon as we can.”

  She gave Ken’s back a quick pat and pushed free of his embrace, reaching for her purse.

  Benita silently walked the hospital corridor with her mother and her great-uncle. What would she see when she reached her grandmother’s room? Grandma Cornelia had been like a second parent to Benita, only better. After her parents’ divorce, Benita and her mother
had moved in with Gram until Benita started grade one. For the next six years, she’d gone straight to Gram’s house every day after school and stayed there until her mother finished work. A retired schoolteacher, Gram had tutored Benita with her schoolwork, but she’d also done so much more. She’d become a friend and true confidante, and Benita couldn’t imagine saying good-bye to her.

  “Only two visitors at a time,” a nurse informed them when they reached the intensive care unit.

  Benita volunteered to hang back. She took a chair in the waiting room and sat watching patients, staff, and visitors come and go while her mother and Uncle Jim were in Gram’s room. She examined her fingernails, her rings, the wallpaper—anything to keep from thinking too hard about where she was sitting or why she was there.

  When Grace came out wiping her eyes, Benita’s heart sank. “Is she gone?”

  “No, she’s still with us. Go on in.”

  As soon as Benita did, she understood her mother’s tears. Gram looked as pale as the sheets she lay on. Oxygen tubes, feeding tubes, heart monitors, and equipment Benita couldn’t identify all competed for attention. The woman on the bed bore little resemblance to her Gram. Benita sat in the chair beside the bed and then restlessly stood again. Gram’s eyes were shut, and she gave no response when Benita took her hand.

  “Gram.” She spoke softly. “It’s Benita.”

  She looked out the window, wondering what she could possibly say. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

  A kaleidoscope of memories whirled through her mind . . . playing crazy eights at Gram’s table, dunking homemade gingersnap cookies into her milk after school, helping Gram pick tomatoes and beans and flowers. Countless books read together. Gram sewing Benita’s prom dress and, later, the little flower girl’s dress for Benita’s wedding. If this was good-bye, how did one wrap up an entire lifetime of love? Could Gram even hear her? What would I want someone to say to me if I were lying on that bed?

  “Gram, I want you to know I love you very much. You’ve been such a good friend to me all my life.” Benita’s voice caught. She wasn’t sure she could say more, yet she knew she must. She took a deep breath and tried again.

  “I deeply admire you, Gram. I know so little about your early life . . . whenever we were together, you were content to make everything all about me. And I guess I was selfish enough to let you do it.” Benita lifted a sleeve and wiped a tear from each cheek, wondering whether Gram was hearing her words.

  “Thank you for speaking words of wisdom into my life. Thank you for teaching me so many things—how to sew and crochet and bake. How to stand up for myself. You always showed so much spunk and good common sense.”

  Benita wandered over to the window and looked out at the early winter dusk settling in. She longed to pour her heart out, to tell Gram how frightened she was about the future. How unfair it all was, what an unambitious disappointment her husband had turned out to be. Until now, she had wanted to spare her grandmother the worry, but now she regretted not opening up to her. Gram would know what to do. She turned and looked at the still form on the bed.

  “Please don’t go yet, Gram. I want you in my life. I still need you. I want Katie-Lynn and James to have you in their lives for a long time.”

  Benita sat for a few more minutes until a nurse came in, then quietly kissed her grandmother’s forehead and whispered, “Good-bye, Gram. I love you.”

  Benita left the room and rejoined her mother and Uncle Jim. They rode all the way home in silence. As her mother drove, Benita wondered: How many untold stories remained locked in her grandmother’s heart? What secrets might go with her when she left this world? What made this woman so strong; what had enabled her to survive the losses of her life without surrendering to bitterness? As they rounded the corner to Benita’s home, a tear finally found its way down her cheek, and she let it fall unchecked.

  CHAPTER 12

  April 2006

  Benita held the hands of both her children as they stood by the graveside, Ken maintaining a stiff presence behind her. As Pastor Gray prayed, Benita glanced at the flowers in Katie-Lynn’s hand and wondered how long they would stay fresh on the grave. She brushed lint off James’s shoulder and smoothed his hair. She looked at her shoes and thought about the good price she’d paid for them. She tried everything she could think of to keep from hearing the words of farewell and watching the casket’s slow descent. She had another couple of hours yet to endure: people paying their respects, expressing their sympathy, the endless rounds of “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Then she could be alone for a while.

  Once they were back at her mother’s house, Benita kept herself busy in the kitchen arranging food on plates and making coffee. A vague sense of guilt hovered over her, and she felt as though she should be more appreciative of the condolences and simply be thankful she’d had a grandmother for the first thirty-five years of her life. Few people could say the same. Sooner or later, we all experience loss like this, she chided herself. Why should she be immune? She heard laughter coming from the living room and ventured as far as the doorway. Friends and family were sharing their memories of Gram, and now it was Ken’s turn.

  “Benita and I were taking Gram for her eye doctor appointment in our little Jetta.” Ken’s eyes were glistening. “She could walk, but we took along a wheelchair to speed things up. It was quite the ordeal, helping her out of her wheelchair, getting her buckled into the front seat, and then loading the chair into the trunk. Gram submitted to the whole thing without a word. But as I climbed into the backseat and started complaining about how hard it was to get in and out of such a little car, she spoke up.

  “‘Huh,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have any trouble.’”

  Everyone chuckled and Benita smiled as she remembered the day. Gram’s sharp wit never left her, even throughout her pain and dependence on others. Benita spotted her mother, seated on the sofa next to Uncle Jim. Gram’s brother hadn’t been as fortunate. Although he was four years younger, some form of dementia had slowly closed in and he seldom spoke now. He still had as many good days as bad ones, but it was never easy to tell how much he grasped about what was going on around him. His wife, Judith, had died from cancer ten years earlier, and Uncle Jim hadn’t been the same since. His only son, Andy, hadn’t made it to Gram’s funeral. Since Andy had no children of his own, it seemed the Simpson line was dying out.

  By five o’clock, the crowd had dispersed and Ken took the children home, promising to return for Benita later. She helped her mother clean up and put away the abundance of food, packing up some for Uncle Jim and some to take home herself.

  As she was putting away a heavy glass serving plate, Grace stopped to stare at it. “This was hers,” she said softly.

  “What’s that, Mom?”

  “Oh, this plate. I’ve been using it so long I almost forgot it belonged to your grandmother. I should set it aside for you before it gets broken.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Mom. You can still use it for years. Decades!” A sudden panic set in at the thought of losing her mother one day.

  Grace wrapped the plate in a clean towel. “It was a wedding gift to my parents, and believe me, a precious one in those days. I think I’ll add it to the silver suitcase.”

  “What silver suitcase?”

  Grace looked up, surprised. “At Gram’s. In the attic, there’s a big silver suitcase. Surely you’ve seen it.”

  Benita hadn’t been in Gram’s attic since childhood. She remembered a trunk of old dress-up clothes Gram had let her play with, but a silver suitcase?

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, it was Gram’s treasure box, and she rarely allowed me to touch it, much less explore its contents. I’ll need to go over there and sort through all her stuff soon, including the silver suitcase. Can you help me?”

  They scheduled the next Wednesday to get started. Benita returned home, e
xhausted. She lay awake far too long, trying in vain to push waves of grief back into the vast ocean called Sorrow.

  CHAPTER 13

  Benita squinted into the sun as she pinned jeans to the clothesline, feeling thankful the weather was warm enough for her to dry the clothes this way. Anything to save money. She had started making oatmeal every morning for breakfast, which no one enjoyed much, including her. But given the mere pennies each serving cost, she knew it made good economic sense. Besides, it was healthier for everybody. So what if Ken complained? If he didn’t like it, he could go out and get work, any work that was available. Why was he so fussy? One thing was clear to her, if they were going to survive, it would be up to her. She had stopped buying her treasured home-decorating magazines long before and had recently canceled their cable subscription, although the company had yet to turn off their service. She dreaded the complaints she would hear from James and Katie-Lynn when it finally happened. Funny, they hadn’t fussed a bit when she canceled their hated piano lessons, though it broke her heart to think her children might never learn to play.

  As she carried the empty basket inside, Benita checked the clock. Time to leave for work. In theory, Ken spent the school hours of each day job hunting, then caring for the children so Benita could put in as many hours at the store as she could get. She suspected, though, that he spent far more hours playing games on the computer than he did looking for jobs these days. She ran a brush through her hair, grabbed a purse and jacket, and headed out the door for the six-block walk.

  As she passed the playground, she spotted an older woman and a curly-haired toddler laughing together in the sandbox. A lump caught in Benita’s throat. Had they really buried Gram yesterday? And now life was supposed to return to normal, with breakfasts and laundry, and grandmothers with grandchildren. Benita swallowed hard. I can’t think about this now, she reasoned. I have to get to work and be pleasant to people. Besides, everybody’s carrying their own load; we’ve all got our stuff.