The Silver Suitcase

by Terrie Todd

  This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way.

  The song was still running through Benita’s head hours later, toward the end of the long day. Once the children were asleep, she and Ken sat down with cups of decaf, their feet sharing a footstool in front of the couch. They simply enjoyed the silence for several minutes before Ken spoke.

  “How was the funeral?”

  “Sad. I did learn something surprising.” She told Ken about the marriage counseling. “I always thought it funny how they ‘ran errands’ together, for things one person could easily do. I figured it was some kind of unhealthy attachment. They were probably going to their counseling sessions.”

  Ken pulled off one sock, then the other. “So they didn’t just have to pay the cost of seeing the counselor, they also had to pay you.”

  “Yeah, I guess. That’s quite a commitment when you think about it.”

  Neither said more about counselors, money, or work for the rest of the evening. Later, as they prepared for bed, Benita hummed “All the Way My Savior Leads Me.”

  “I remember that hymn from when I was a kid,” Ken said around his toothbrush.

  “Me, too. I remember Gram singing it while she worked. Off-key, of course. I wish I’d thought of it last week; we could have used it at her funeral, too. I think it was one of her favorites.”

  Ken rinsed his mouth and spit the water out in the sink. “What would you think about going back to church sometime? The kids aren’t learning anything about God or faith.” He tapped his toothbrush on the edge of the sink.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say they aren’t learning anything. We’ve read to them from that children’s Bible that Gram gave them. At least I have.”

  “Kind of defensive, aren’t we?” Ken placed his toothbrush back in its holder.

  Benita sighed. “Faith must have been so much simpler in Gram’s day. It was her middle name, you know—Cornelia Faith. In her day, you grew up surrounded with it and never questioned. I bet she never knew a moment of doubt in her life.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Today’s the day, Benita decided. She eyed the silver suitcase in the corner of her bedroom.

  “Mom gave me specific instructions to give this to you, Benita.” Grace had handed Benita the treasured item the previous Thursday, when the entire family had descended on Gram’s house for the final clearing out of her effects. “Why don’t you take it home with you now? You can go through it in a relaxed fashion, little by little. As time allows.”

  “You mean, as my heart can handle it?”

  “That, too.” Grace had smiled.

  Benita felt honored to be entrusted with the curious box. I’ll at least see what’s on top.

  She made a pot of coffee while the oatmeal bubbled on the stove. Back in the bedroom, she pulled on some jeans and a sweatshirt, keeping an eye on the silver suitcase the entire time, wondering what she was about to discover. By the time she returned to the kitchen, the rest of the family was up and ready for breakfast.

  Half an hour later, Ken was searching for career opportunities in the Winnipeg Free Press and the kids were engrossed in the comics. Benita poured herself a second cup of coffee and ventured back to the bedroom, where she stood eyeing the silver suitcase for a full two minutes. Finally she picked it up and carried it to the back porch, where the morning sun bathed the closed-in space with comforting warmth. Benita figured this was the ideal place to tackle what she sensed would be a most private journey.

  She sat in her favorite wicker chair and pulled a small matching table close. With the trunk in front of her and her coffee mug off to the side, she got ready to begin, but then paused. This seemed like a sacred moment, and Benita felt that something more was in order. She remembered the hymn that had played in her head last night. Music, she decided. She fetched a small CD player from the living room and looked through the family’s stack of music options for the perfect selection. She flipped through Oldies of the ’70s, Ken’s country collection, Strauss waltzes, and Tchaikovsky’s piano concertos. She finally settled on her favorite Solitudes collection, which featured mellow music combined with bird sounds. Gram had loved birds. You’re procrastinating, Benita, she told herself. Let’s get to it already.

  Once the CD was playing, Benita took one last swallow of coffee and ceremoniously opened the little trunk her mother insisted on calling a suitcase. Instantly, the apple-cinnamon smell of Gram’s house wafted up. She felt the weight of memory push her against the back of the chair and she leaned back, simply looking at the top layer of the suitcase’s contents.

  “I don’t know what I expected,” she muttered. “Bats to come flying out, maybe? Something magical, maybe a genie? Wouldn’t that be great? I’d wish for a million dollars and all our problems would end. Plus, I’d still have two more wishes.”

  She was procrastinating again. Why was this so hard?

  One item at a time, she told herself. The only visible item was a neatly folded quilt, so Benita gently pulled it out and spread it across her lap. It wasn’t the prettiest quilt she’d ever seen, and she could tell that it had been made the old-fashioned way—using old clothing for material, as a money-saving measure. Today’s quilts, although gorgeous, always made Benita laugh. Quilters chose brand-new, color-coordinated fabrics, often precut into little pieces, and sewed them together into intricate and flawless patterns that were designed to be the focal point of a room. There was nothing cost-efficient about them.

  This, the real McCoy, would have been a much greater challenge, with its unmatched bits of fabric in varying weights. In one corner, a note was pinned. Benita recognized her grandmother’s handwriting:

  This quilt was made for me by my mother, out of scraps left over from all the clothing she sewed for our family before she fell ill.

  Benita wished Gram were here to tell her about each piece. The quilt was much smaller than those made today. No doubt it had been designed for a double bed. It would fit nicely on Katie-Lynn’s twin bed. Why hasn’t this been used? She decided it was not going back into the suitcase.

  Setting the quilt aside, Benita took a deep breath and looked into the suitcase again. An odd bucket contraption took up one entire side, but when she pulled it out, Benita knew immediately what it was. Although she hadn’t thought of the thing in years, she remembered Gram cranking out homemade ice cream on it when she was a tiny girl. This had been their Sunday night ritual, each person taking a turn managing the crank until at last the ice cream was done, and they could enjoy the creamy sweetness.

  One Christmas when Benita was eleven or twelve, Grace had presented Gram with a brand-new electric ice-cream maker to make the job easier. Oddly enough, the ritual seemed to fade and die shortly after that, and Benita remembered nothing of the new appliance beyond watching Gram open it on Christmas morning. She was thrilled now, however, to discover the original and wondered if it still worked. Even if it doesn’t, she decided, it’s going to look fantastic in my kitchen corner with the other antiques. The writing on the side was faded and unreadable, but 1910 was etched into the handle and still clearly visible, making the machine ninety-six years old.

  The next item was a tattered old green hymnbook with Tabernacle Hymns printed on the front cover; its back cover was missing altogether. It still held together, though, and when Benita thumbed through it, she discovered that only one page was missing. Some pages had lyrics circled or notes in the side margins, much like the ones Benita had seen Gram write in her Bible. She took her time browsing through its pages, remembering Gram’s off-key but joyful singing.

  The remainder of the silver suitcase was filled with old notebooks of various kinds, some tied together with string, some holding their own; all of them carefully labeled on the front in Gram’s familiar handwriting with the word Diary, followed by the year. The top few were from the mid-1950s, and as Benita gently lifted them out, she discovered that the diaries w
ent backward in time from there, all the way to 1934. A quick calculation told Benita that Gram had begun diary keeping at the age of twelve. Most of the notebooks had been written with a fountain pen, the ink bleeding ever so slightly on the brittle covers.

  Benita sat back in her chair again, her heart pounding. Oh my gosh. This really is a treasure, she thought. Where do I start? But even as she asked the question, she knew the answer. She would start at the beginning, and read every word her grandmother had written, in chronological order.

  PART 3

  The Suitcase

  For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

  Psalm 91:11

  CHAPTER 18

  Carefully, Benita picked up the earliest of the diaries, dated 1934. The words, written in bleeding ink on yellowed pages, were difficult to read. The handwriting of a twelve-year-old girl bore little resemblance to Gram’s penmanship, which Benita knew well. She noticed her heartbeat pick up its pace and felt a mild sense of guilty intrusion as she opened the diary to its first page, dated January 1. With shock, she read the first words:

  Dear God. I hate you with all the hatred I can hate. There, I said it. Strike me with lightning if you want, I don’t care. Daddy gave me this diary for Christmas because he thought it might help me with missing my mother. You took her from us five months ago today, on my twelfth birthday, and I will never forgive you, never ever ever. So this is the last letter you will get from me. From now on, I shall write in my diary but it will not be addressed to you. Yours truly, Cornelia Faith Simpson.

  Benita didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her heart ached for this poor, motherless girl who felt so abandoned by God. Yet this girl bore little resemblance to the person she’d known as her faith-filled Gram. Benita couldn’t help wondering how and when Gram had come to terms with God. The next entry, dated February 14, was a letter to Gram’s late mother.

  Dearest Mother: I think you would have been proud of me today. I finally got the bread just right, the way you used to. Daddy said it tasted as good as yours and I cried a little. Jimmy looked sad. He misses you. Agnes and Becky brought heart-shaped cookies to school today for Valentines and we all ate one. We don’t have sugar and things to make cookies. Daddy says it’s because Agnes and Becky’s father runs the store and we’ll have cookies again when the depression ends. What’s a depression and how long does it take to be over? I need to go to bed now. Tomorrow is laundry day. I sure hope it’s not too cold out. I love you and miss you. Your darling daughter, Corrie.

  Benita tried to picture Gram as a young girl, but managed only to picture herself at that age. Benita hadn’t hated God, though. If she’d hated anyone, it was the unseen father of whom she had no memory. By his absence, he’d taught her she must depend only on herself if she was to make it in life. Gram had tried to teach her otherwise. Grace, on the other hand, had taught her through example that maybe God and her father were one and the same.

  The sound of a motor starting and stopping in the garage told Benita that Ken had taken a break from job hunting to tinker with his lawn mower. She decided to keep reading.

  May 12. It’s Jimmy’s birthday and he is 8 years old today. Aunty Nonie and Aunt Miriam came by with a little cake and a new pair of overalls for him. They cooked potatoes and eggs and stayed to eat with us.

  Mr. Halston says Shep was the daddy to his last bunch of puppies and so we need to keep Shep tied up for a week or so because they don’t want Gypsy to have another batch. I overheard him discussing it with Daddy, all hush-hush like I don’t know what that stuff’s all about. But I do, Mama. I know about that stuff. It’s not hard to figure out.

  Angela and Becky were bragging about how they are women now. They think they’re so smart. I’ve been a woman for months already. Stupid girls. Just because I don’t feel like talking about it. Aunty Nonie helped me when my time came.

  Poor Shep.

  An hour passed, and Benita remained engrossed in her grandmother’s story. Details of her friends, the secrets they shared, the squabbles they fought, and the clothes they wore filled the pages of the ratty old notebook. Several entries included threats of what she would do to Jimmy if he called her “Corny” one more time. After each entry, Benita told herself I’ll read one more, then I’ll go get some work done.

  June 30. School is out and I passed Grade 7. One more year and I will be done with school. It’s a beautiful day and I’m looking forward to the summer even with all the work to do around here. The Sunday School picnic is this Sunday and I hope to win new hair ribbons for perfect attendance. Plus, we won’t have to go to Aunt Miriam’s for Sunday dinner on account of the picnic. Jimmy and I don’t mind at all. She’s completely unbearable sometimes and I don’t know how Daddy puts up with her constantly telling him how he should raise his own children.

  “Mom?” Katie-Lynn called from the kitchen. “The phone’s for you.”

  Benita hadn’t even heard it ring. She set the diary down carefully and took the cordless phone from her daughter. She looked at Katie-Lynn, now nine, and tried to imagine her losing either of her parents and taking on household responsibilities as her grandmother had. Unfathomable. Benita put the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  It was Stacey, her employers’ daughter, and Benita instinctively knew this would not be a call back to work. Instead, Stacey wanted to set up a meeting to “discuss the situation” as soon as possible. Benita felt sure this signified another layoff, meaning that her household was about to consist of two unemployed adults with two children to feed and clothe. While a part of her wanted to postpone the inevitable, another part wanted to get it over with. She agreed that Stacey and her brother could come to the house at three that afternoon.

  Benita hung up the phone. Here we go, she thought. The lawn mower stopped and a moment later Ken came around the corner of the porch, wiping his brow.

  “Can you be here when they come?” she asked after telling him about the call. “However this goes, I don’t want to repeat everything and I won’t have to if you’re here.”

  “I’ll be here,” Ken said.

  He showered and changed clothes while Benita tidied the house before their guests arrived. “God,” she muttered, “if you’re listening . . . what sort of twist is my life about to take now?”

  CHAPTER 19

  Benita poured steaming coffee into Stacey’s mug while Rod sipped his ice water. She’d invited them to join her and Ken on the back porch, where they admired the antique silver suitcase beside Benita’s chair. Both of them had inherited their father’s fiery red hair and freckles. When she heard Rod chuckle as he joined his sister on the porch swing, Benita detected Brian’s laugh.

  Now that the small talk and condolences were behind them, Benita braced herself for getting down to business.

  “Naturally Benita and I are curious about your intentions for the store.” Ken stirred sugar into his coffee.

  Benita gave her husband a glance, unsure whether she was resentful or grateful that he’d broached the subject so quickly.

  “Yes. That’s why we’re here.” Rod cleared his throat. “We’ve had a chance to look at the store’s books and ask around about the real estate market. Stacey and I share fond memories of growing up in that place. We hate the idea of selling it, but neither of us is in a position to run it. Yet selling it now doesn’t make economic sense, either.”

  “We think, with a little initiative, the store can still be a viable enterprise,” Stacey said, drumming her fingers against the side of her mug. “It would be ideal if we could hire someone with retail experience, who knows the neighborhood—”

  “—and who wouldn’t mind living right there over the store,” Rod continued. “That way the rent could be part of their salary—”

  “—someone with a knack for sprucing things up, maybe some interest in interior design . . .”

  Ben
ita’s eyes grew wider by the second. “Are you asking me to manage the store?”

  “No, Benita.” Stacey smiled. “We are asking both of you. Believe me, running the place is two full-time jobs.” She looked at Benita’s husband. “We know you’ve been without work awhile, Ken, and to us it seems like the timing couldn’t be better. Benita already knows the ins and outs of the store, and you have experience with a big chain. Would you two consider it?”

  Benita and Ken stared at each other in shock. This was the last thing either of them had expected. Benita looked around. It would mean moving into much smaller quarters. But if they accepted the offer, they could crawl out from under their mortgage, maybe even use their home equity to pay off the debts they’d accrued since Ken’s layoff.

  “When do you need an answer?” Ken thumbed through his pocket calendar.

  “Oh, we know you’ll need some time to think about it,” Rod said. “But the sooner, the better. In the meantime, we really need to reopen so we don’t lose Mom and Dad’s loyal customers. If the two of you could see your way to start Monday morning and run the store while you make up your minds, we’ll gladly pay you for your time.”

  “Consider it a trial run.” Stacey set her mug on the table. “If you decide not to take the positions, you can step back. No hard feelings.”

  “That’s more than fair,” Benita said after exchanging another silent look with her husband. “Wow. I really thought you came here to tell me you were closing the store. I’m pretty overwhelmed!”

  “I understand.” Tears glistened on the ends of Stacey’s eyelashes. “We’re overwhelmed ourselves. But we really hope you’ll say yes. We believe Mom and Dad would want this. And to us . . . well, it seems like a God thing.”