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“Great!” I squeak.
There goes the confidence. And the confetti.
“Number seventy-eight, right here.” Arnold inserts his key into the small rectangular locker and motions for me to enter my key into the other hole. He opens the door and pulls out the box. Wordlessly he drops the box and my driver’s license onto the altar and walks out the door.
I pause, my hand hovering over the lid. This is something big; I can feel it.
I take a deep breath and lift the lid, one slow inch at a time, then stop.
But what if it’s nothing?
I’m not ready for this last mystery of my parents to be solved yet. Maybe I should leave it. If I don’t know, it will remain a mystery and I’ll be able to pretend my parents are still off gallivanting around the world, living their best life. But what if it's a treasure map? My parents loved art and history. Maybe they were secretly treasure seekers and that’s what took them to all the ends of the world.
I yank the lid up.
The first thing I see is a dirty handkerchief.
Not off to a great start.
I pinch a corner of the cloth with my thumb and forefinger, gently removing it to reveal a…jewelry box?
It’s only four inches wide and old, but gorgeous with thousands of crystals covering the lid in an ornate flower pattern. It’s familiar. Where have I seen it before?
I try to open the box, but nothing happens. I pick it up and try again. But it’s rusted shut. There is a tiny drawer in the bottom, but that too is jammed. I give it a shake. Something rattles inside but nothing comes loose.
That’s it?
I can’t even open the thing. It feels like a slap to the face of my hopes and dreams. This was supposed to change my life. It was supposed to mean something.
I turn the box over and over again in my hands and a memory sparks to life.
Before my parents left for Italy, I saw this on the counter when I went over to visit. My mom had been going through my grandmother’s things, storing some away, and donating others. I never saw it after that.
It was my grandmother’s.
Grief claws at my chest. I hardly knew my grandmother before she passed. What I wanted was another reminder of my parents. I wanted some memory I’d lost to the past to be replaced by whatever was in this box. I wanted a story of my mother to remember when I missed her. I wanted an adventure to make me feel like they were still out there living.
A tear slips down my cheek. I wanted more.
I wipe my tears away and tuck the jewelry box in my bag. I leave the handkerchief inside the safety deposit box and lock it up.
I walk back the way I came, my shoulders drooped, my confident persona abandoned and left to die where my hopes did.
I call Connor the second I get in my car.
“Let me guess, you went to the bank without me,” he answers immediately even though he’s at work.
“How did you know?”
“Because I know my sister can’t resist a mystery.” I hear the smile in his voice and imagine his eyes crinkling to make him look like Dad.
“Well, this one turned out to be a dud,” I mutter, starting the car as I tell him about what I found.
“That’s only because you haven’t figured out why it’s special yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our grandmother’s jewelry box was in a safety deposit box. The key for said box was stuffed into a box with a painting. Which I would like out of my office, by the way. No one goes to that much effort for nothing. Mom knew it was worth something. You know how she liked her vintage treasures.”