The Silver Suitcase

by Terrie Todd

  A phone call confirmed Ken’s guess about the police not wanting to check the suitcase for evidence. With a heavy heart, Benita carried it inside, where she spent another half hour sponging off the dirt and debris from its surface and repairing the broken hinge.

  “I’m so sorry, Gram,” she whispered through her tears. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  This time, she determined to include her mother and Ken in the experience of reading the diary, regardless of how little remained. She called Grace, who arrived within the hour carrying a tuna casserole.

  The adults waited until after the children went to bed to sit at the kitchen table with the retrieved pages. Benita set up an extra lamp to ensure the best possible lighting, while Ken made a pot of tea. Together the three of them sat and looked at the sorry little stack of pages. They each picked one or two sheets and took turns attempting to read them aloud.

  Ken started. “This one looks like it starts in the middle of an entry, so there’s no date. How far did you say the diaries went?”

  “The most recent was from 1965, five years before I was born. I checked that out when I first got the suitcase,” Benita admitted with a sheepish grin. “If there had been anything written after I arrived on the scene, I’d have read those first to see if she wrote anything about me.”

  “Then she must be writing about you here, Grace,” Ken said. “It’s quite easy to read, actually:

  “. . . and today she said the cutest thing. I wanted to write this down before I forget. I was bringing in the clothes from the line and she said ‘Mommy, can you hang me on the clothesline after my bath too? I want to swing back and forth in the breeze like the sheets. Whee!’”

  “Oh, yes, I remember hearing that story well into my teens,” Grace said. “Mom thought it was the funniest thing and told it every chance she got.”

  Ken continued reading.

  “Words can’t describe how blessed I feel to be a mother. My little girl is the light of my life and I thank Jesus for her every day. How I hope and pray she grows up to know him too.”

  “Then there’s about two inches of stains running across the page . . . I can’t make it out.” Ken slid the paper toward Benita, but she couldn’t read it either. Below the smudges, she saw more, and picked it up from there.

  “. . . it’s the same dress I wore to Jim’s wedding and I was glad for the chance to wear it again. Speaking of Jim’s wedding, now that he’s moved off the farm, I worry about Daddy. Stuart and I help with the farmwork as much as we can, but he is really starting to look old. I wish he’d consider selling some of the cattle and pasture—it’s too much. A smaller milk quota would be a lot more manageable, but he won’t listen to reason. I even chatted with Aunt Miriam about it, and she agrees with me. But I fear if she tries to persuade him, he’ll only dig his heels in more.

  “My students and I are walking across Canada! We’ve calculated the miles from Halifax to Vancouver and made a giant chart on the wall. We keep track of how many miles we walk—around the borders of the schoolyard, mostly—and each of us fills in our number for each day. Then the students take turns calculating the week’s total and moving the marker on the map to show our progress. I have assigned each student a city to write a short report on, and they give their report when we reach their city. We’re somewhere around Port Arthur now, and I think we can make it to the Pacific by the end of June at this rate. They are learning their geography and improving their physical fitness and health at the same time. As am I.”

  “She was a great teacher.” Grace wiped her eyes. “I had her for history and geography three years in a row, and even I loved her.”

  “Former students attended the funeral,” Ken said. “One of them pulled out of her purse a note written by Gram, encouraging her in her writing talent. She’d carried that thing with her for thirty years or more.”

  “I think that’s all we’re going to get out of this page.” Benita smoothed the sheet out as best she could. “Some kind of dirt or ashes covers the rest. At least I hope it’s nothing worse than that. What have you got there, Mom?”

  Grace put her glasses on and picked up the sheet in front of her.

  “This one begins in the middle of a sentence, too. Ken, why don’t you pencil in the approximate date on that one we just read? Sounds like I was a preschooler . . . it was after Uncle Jim got married but before Grandpa died, so . . . somewhere about 1947 or ’48, I’d say.”

  She turned to the page before her.

  “. . . and I worry I won’t be much of a mother because I only had a mother of my own for such a short time and for much of that time, she was sick. Most of all, I have this nagging fear something will happen to me when Gracie turns 12 and she’ll be left motherless, like I was. I know it’s not a reasonable fear, but I can’t seem to shake it. It’s so real. And her twelfth birthday falls on Monday—”

  “Okay, so this would have been . . . um . . . 1956.” Grace grabbed the pencil and jotted the year on the corner of the sheet before continuing.

  “—so naturally, I’ve been unusually distracted by the significance of it. I haven’t said a word to Stuart about my anxiety. I know he’d think I was silly. And of course I wouldn’t tell Gracie. There’s no point in giving her cause for alarm, although I suspect the poor girl wonders why I’m so clingy these days. I even went to my spot by the creek to pray. I know, deep down, I hoped for Aziel to come to me there . . . and he did, in a way. Although I couldn’t see or touch him, I could feel a supernatural presence and I think God wants me to relax and enjoy my daughter.

  “Of course, not a day goes by that I don’t also think of her sister—”

  At this, Grace’s voice began to quiver and she paused. But when Benita offered to finish reading for her, Grace shook her head and continued.

  “—and God, I pray she is all right. In my imagination, the two girls play together and squabble over clothes and boys as I’ve seen sisters do. She must be sixteen now. Oh Lord, please watch over my Mary Sarah. Give her parents all the wisdom and love you can spare, God. May they shower her with love and goodness. And give me strength to be the mother Gracie needs. I love her so much, it hurts. If she should lose me now, well . . . I just don’t want her to go through what I did.”

  Grace had reached the end of the entry and the end of the page. She sat silently for so long, Benita finally spoke. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  Grace blew her nose and took a sip of her tea. “Yes. It’s just . . . becoming real, I guess. Seeing this in my mother’s own handwriting . . . that I really do have a sister somewhere. Takes a while to sink in, you know?”

  “Does it make you more eager to meet Ramona?” Ken asked.

  “A little. But if it turns out she’s not Mary Sarah . . . it will be harder still. On all of us.”

  “Well, we don’t have much longer to wait.” Ken glanced at his watch. “It’s almost Monday.”

  “Mom, do you want to stay overnight?” Benita gathered the diary pages into a stack. “We can finish reading these in the morning. It’s a lot to take in at once.”

  Grace agreed, and they placed the few tattered sheets into the broken suitcase and slowly closed the lid.

  CHAPTER 52

  July 1950

  Cornelia was hoeing a row of thigh-high corn during the hottest part of the day when the sight of an old red car going down the gravel road almost made her heart stop. She watched as the car made dust fly across the field to the north. In an instant, the previous ten years disappeared and Henry Roberts once again drove his father’s 1932 Pontiac Coupe, bringing his mother to visit.

  Who on earth could own a car just like that? And why were they slowing down, coming down Cornelia’s driveway? She felt her stomach do a flip and her palms tingle. She looked over at six-year-old Gracie, playing under the shade trees next to the house. Seated on a blanket, Gracie was busy putting doll clothes on a patient m
other cat. Cornelia’s instinct was to snatch up Grace, carry her inside the house, and bolt the door. Instead, she wiped her brow, dusted off her hands, and walked slowly toward the car.

  A woman sat behind the wheel. As she climbed out of the car, a light switched on for Cornelia. Eva Roberts stood before her, ten years older and alone.

  “Hello, Corrie.”

  Cornelia tried, but couldn’t speak. Gracie ran up beside her and shyly hid behind her mother’s apron. The tabby cat wriggled from Gracie’s grip and trotted off, shaking herself free of a pink bonnet. Cornelia put a hand on the little girl’s head and stroked her hair.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I hope I haven’t come at a bad time. I—” Eva’s voice trailed off.

  Finally, Cornelia took a deep breath and found her voice. “Eva. What a surprise.”

  “I hoped—well, I stopped in at your father’s and he pointed me this way. He said he’d phone you to let you know I was coming.”

  “I’ve been in the garden all day.”

  “Yes, I see. I hoped we could talk.”

  Cornelia glanced down the road toward her childhood home, where she could make out Stuart and Daddy hammering new shingles on the old house. They would be at it until dark, she was certain. “Come in,” she said softly.

  While Eva used the bathroom, Cornelia washed her hands at the kitchen sink and made a fresh pot of coffee. She poured a glass of milk for Gracie and placed a plate of gingersnaps on the table.

  “This is my daughter, Grace,” Cornelia said when Eva entered the kitchen.

  “Well, hello, Grace. It’s lovely to meet you, sweetie.” Eva smiled at the little girl, who gave no response.

  “What do you say, Gracie?” her mother prompted.

  “How do you do?” It was barely a whisper, but she said it.

  “Fine, thank you,” Eva replied. “What a lovely little girl. Congratulations, Corrie.”

  “Thank you. Have a seat. I’ll get the coffee.”

  Eva had questions. “Your father tells me you’re teaching at the very school you attended as a student. That must be nostalgic.”

  “Yes.” Cornelia had taken two years off when Grace arrived, but she’d been back for four years now. Aunt Miriam babysat for her during the day, and took great pleasure in preparing Grace for school. “Gracie will start this fall. Her father teaches also, at the town school.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “Well . . . his name is Stuart Baker. We met after I moved back home, and . . .” Cornelia couldn’t continue. “Why are you here, Eva?”

  The woman paused, then took a deep breath. “Does Stuart know?”

  Cornelia swallowed hard. “Gracie, sweetheart, why don’t you take a cookie and go look at your books in your room for a while? It’s time for some afternoon quiet.”

  Both women watched Grace leave. Once her daughter was out of earshot, Cornelia repeated her earlier question. “Why did you come?”

  “Samuel passed away, Corrie. Last winter. He had a stroke.”

  “I’m sorry. You must be very lonely.”

  “I am. I wanted to see you again. I wanted—” Eva put her head down. “I’ve wanted to see you for ten long years. I always wanted to stay in touch.”

  “He wouldn’t allow it?”

  “No.”

  Cornelia sighed and took a sip of her coffee.

  “I was hoping . . . now that he’s gone . . . you could forgive us for the way we treated you. Perhaps we could be friends. Gracie doesn’t have a grandmother, and I don’t have—”

  “I do forgive you, Mrs. Roberts. Eva. But I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “Well . . . you and I really have—had—only one thing in common. Henry. And he’s gone.” Cornelia looked around her sunny kitchen. “I have a new life. I’m sorry for your loneliness, but I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “We have more in common than Henry, Corrie. We have the baby.”

  “She’s ten years old already, Eva. She doesn’t even know who we are.”

  “All the more reason why we need each other.” Eva searched Cornelia’s face. “You’ve never told Stuart, have you?”

  Cornelia could feel the tears immediately. She ignored them and let them drop, one by one, down her cheeks and onto her lap. She stared at her apron, blackened with garden dirt.

  “What about your father? Does he know?”

  Cornelia moved her head only slightly. The two women sat without a word for what felt like a full five minutes. Finally, Cornelia broke the silence.

  “It was part of the deal.”

  “Deal?”

  Cornelia nodded. “Don’t you remember? Samuel promised to support me through the completion of my high school and the baby’s birth, provided I never said a word. He kept his end of the bargain and I’ve kept—”

  “Oh, Corrie. Sweetheart. You are not bound by anything. Not then, not now. Samuel is gone. You cannot hurt his precious pride.”

  “What possible good could it do to tell anyone now?”

  “This is too great a burden for you to carry alone. If you cannot bring yourself to tell anyone else, then all the more reason for us to be friends. I can help you carry your secret.”

  “My husband does know about Henry. Wouldn’t he find it odd if you and I suddenly began corresponding, or—” Another thought hit Cornelia. “You’re not moving back to Roseburg, are you?”

  “No. My home is in the city. My friends. Church. It’s where my son and my husband are buried, and it’s where I want to be. But knowing I have a grandchild out there, somewhere—”

  “I know. Don’t think for a moment I don’t feel that ache.”

  “Maybe one day we can find her, Corrie. Together.”

  Cornelia slowly shook her head. “And how would I explain that to Stuart? To Gracie?”

  “You’d find a way.”

  “What about Daddy? He’d only be that much more hurt that I kept such an enormous secret from him all these years.”

  “We cross that bridge when we come to it, Corrie. We don’t have to think about that yet. For now, I’m asking to be your friend.”

  “Friend?”

  “We’ll write, we’ll get together a couple of times a year. You could bring Grace and visit me for a few days each summer. We could take her to see the zoo, go shopping. Oh, did you know the spring floods wiped out the band stage at Kildonan Park? They’re going to put up a brand-new one, with an arch of lights over the top to look like a rainbow!” Eva demonstrated the shape with her hands. “It will be wonderful! We can go see all sorts of concerts and—”

  “Eva,” Cornelia said firmly, holding both palms toward the woman.

  Eva stopped talking and turned her eyes toward the floor with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’ve dropped in here completely unexpected after all these years. Of course, you need some time.”

  “No, Eva. I don’t. I do appreciate your apology, but I really don’t need more time. I have a new life. I don’t need reminders of things that are no more, things that can never be. I’m sorry.”

  Eva swallowed hard. “I see.” She picked up her purse.

  Cornelia stared at her own knees once again as Eva walked to the door and opened it. She didn’t turn around when Eva said, “If you change your mind . . .” After a long pause, Cornelia heard the door close. She looked into her coffee cup as she heard the Pontiac start and drive away.

  “Oh God. Have I done the right thing?” she whispered, wiping tears from her cheeks and looking toward the ceiling. “If only I could know.”

  CHAPTER 53

  October 2007

  Happy shrieks from Katie-Lynn woke Benita long after her alarm should have rung. Surprised to see their grandmother still there, both children were determined to make her breakfast—cornflakes, toast, and orange ju
ice. Benita grabbed a bathrobe and hustled to the kitchen, where she put on the coffee. Ken was already downstairs at work, and the children were due at school in thirty minutes. As soon as they’d prepared Grace’s breakfast and eaten their own, Benita shooed them to their rooms to get dressed.

  “I can’t imagine how I forgot to set the alarm.” Benita poured two cups of coffee and sat across the table from her mother. “Did you manage to sleep okay on that old hide-a-bed, Mom?”

  “Oh, I’ve had better nights.” Grace accepted the mug with both hands. “But I’m not sure I’d have slept better at home anyway. The countdown is on till Ramona arrives, and that’s all I can think about. Listen, since I’m already dressed, why don’t you let me drop the kids at school on my way home?”

  “Don’t you want to stick around here for a while?”

  Grace’s eyes sparkled. “The idea came to me in the night to round up old family photo albums and the like. Ramona will want to see pictures.”

  “Sure, Mom, but don’t you want to finish reading what we salvaged of the diary?”

  “You know I do. But what would you think about saving them for a bit? If Ramona does indeed turn out to be our girl, we could really make an event out of it.”

  “Yeah. Okay. You’re right.” Benita swallowed a pang of disappointment.

  “Isn’t it funny?” Grace gathered up her purse and casserole dish. “When you first told me about this, I wanted nothing to do with it. But now I keep imagining what it would be like to have a sister—a real, live sister of my own. I always wanted one when I was little. I even used to bug Mom about it. How that must have crushed her heart! If only I’d known.”

  “Well, Gram chose not to tell. How could you have had any idea?”