The Box

 Ruth Emory's attic was proof that when things were out of sight they were also out of mind. She had been de-cluttering up there for almost a week. She had made it through a mountain of boxes filled with old dishes, discarded pots and pans, clothes and half finished knitting projects gone awry. Now that the great wall of boxes had been reduced there were only a few pieces of furniture left. There were 2 rockers, Jim's roll-top desk, a bright yellow kitchen step stool (circa 1950) and an ancient floor lamp that was mostly brass and weighed a ton. She would have to get her next door neighbor, Ned, to bring that thing down. 

She sat down on the step-stool and started from top to bottom throwing away bent paper clips, a box of rusty staples, a collection of almost dry pens and nubs of pencils. In the next to last drawer there was a small pile of receipts. Good Lord, in 1970 bread was 25 cents a loaf, milk was $1.32 a gallon and you could get a dozen eggs for 60 cents! Those were the days...maybe she would keep this receipt for framing. 

In the last drawer, under an old bank book she found a small heart shaped box made out of Myrtle wood. It was tiny enough to slide into a pocket. It HAD to have come from Bandon on the Oregon coast because that is where they bought myrtle wood. She had opened it gingerly and inside on a small piece of satin was a key…

For the past four months Ruth had found it increasingly difficult to get up in the mornings. It wasn't because she was sleep deprived because she slept a lot (sleep was a safe haven). It wasn't because of a hangover from too many whiskey shots or mood stabilizers and it definitely wasn't because she had just turned eighty. It was all because her husband had unexpectedly been catapulted into the Great Beyond like some cannonball shot from a cannon. 

She hated this new husband-less life. Honestly, she felt like she had been abandoned in a Memory Minefield. Last week she had turned on the TV to watch the weather report and found the channel had been left on OPB (their favorite station). MONDAY NIGHT MURDERS and MYSTERIES was on. They had watched this religiously every week for the past three years; cuddled together on the sofa, ferreting out clues over a big bowl of homemade buttered popcorn. And remembering this, her grief exploded like those memory mines in the minefield- (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!)

She turned off the TV as quickly as she could and called the Salvation Army, who came the next morning and hauled it away. 

Even driving through town to do errands was fraught with the possibility of unexpected explosions. If she had a doctor's appointment she had to drive by St. Mary's hospital where their only child, Gracie, was born. If she had a dental appointment or an eye exam she had to pass Pioneer Cemetery where they had buried Gracie eight years later after an outbreak of meningitis had brought the town to its knees. They had sat shoulder to shoulder on hard metal chairs at the graveside; stony- faced even though their hearts felt like pulsating masses of shattered glass. 

Just yesterday, she had driven past the fancy restaurant on the corner of Fifth and Maple where Jim had planned a surprise costume party for her seventy-fifth birthday. He was a man of precision, a chemical engineer by profession, with a love of conquering obstacles. His eye for detail was a gift. She could almost hear him say, "Ruthie, it's just like my dad said..you have to be vigilant because the devil is in the details!" He had hired a caterer from Portland and a swing band. He even came up with a theme (the Fabulous Forties) and put together her costume as well, with the help of Agnes Stillwater, who owned the fancy Vintage Dress shop downtown. The white limousine he rented to whisk them away to the restaurant was quite the surprise! When they arrived at the restaurant he blindfolded her and led her past the streamers and the balloons into the ladies room where Agnes had hung her costume. Oh what a sweet costume it was, too...a black and white polka dot dress complete with a circle skirt held high by a crinoline half slip. She couoldn't believe that the stockings actually had seams up the back and the low wedge heels with the ankle straps were very much like a pair she once owned. 

She had sat down on the bathroom bench and was sliding one stocking over an outstretched leg when he said, "Honey, remember when we were in Bandon and you were putting on your stockings, just like now and I reached over and..." 

"Oh stop Jim! How you go on!" but she blushed a little remembering their honeymoon in Bandon. He bent down and kissed her and said, "You are my Baby Ruth, sweet as candy!" Calling her the name of his favorite candy bar was an old joke of theirs. 

When they emerged from the ladies room she felt like a princess and when the band started playing Glenn Miller songs they danced and whirled and shimmied around the room, secure among their friends and warmed by love then, (BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!)

She had to pull the car over and park as the memory of that day engulfed her. She sat there for thirty minutes and cried her eyes out. When she came to the end of her tears, she searched in her purse for Jim's death certificate and pulled it out to look at it for the umpteenth time. It grounded her in the present, pulled her from the past where things weren't real anymore. Death...this was real.

She had begged him to skip his weekly poker game. None of his friends drove except Sam and he wasn’t going because he was giving a lecture that night down at the Junior College. She would take him but she couldn’t see well enough at night to drive; neither of them could. When she suggested a Taxi he said. “Honey, you are a worry wart! It’s only a mile away; I will be fine.”

She was awakened just after midnight by the doorbell. Oh, for god’s sake, had he forgotten his house key again? She wrapped her robe around her and yelled, “OK, I’m coming!” She opened the door saying, “I can’t believe you forgot….” There were two policemen standing on the porch; one tall and one short and both shifting their weight from one foot to the other, clutching their police caps awkwardly in front of them. “Mrs. Emory, may we come inside?” the tall one asked.

“Oh…well, of course!” she answered in a voice that sounded foreign to her ears. 

They sat in the two armchairs across from the sofa. As they began to speak, she felt as if some unseen force was strangling her.

“Ma’am,” said the short one, “There has been an accident. Your husband’s car was hit by an 18 wheeler.”

The tall one continued. “The driver fell asleep at the wheel and crossed into the oncoming lane and there was nothing your husband could do to avoid… the fatal crash.”

Her throat felt tight and she found it difficult to take a deep breath. Her hands felt clammy. She looked at each one as they spoke, directly into their eyes. Maybe it was all a big lie…she would know by their eyes. All she saw there was compassion.

“The coroner said that your husband didn’t suffer... that it was instantaneous.” Said the short officer. “Ma’am, is there someone we can call for you?”

“No, no…” she said, “there isn’t anyone I want to call just yet.”

 “We are very sorry for your loss,” the two officers said in unison.

After they had gone she sat for a long time staring at the business cards they left on the coffee table. Somewhere a dog barked. It was so quiet she had heard the ticking of the wall clock and timed her breathing to it’s rhythm; in and out, in and out. Little by little things began to sink in and grief enveloped her like a straight jacket. The more she steeled herself against it, the tighter it became.

She had the memorial service at their home with a lot of help from Ned and his wife, Gilda. Even though she was surrounded by friends she felt lost without Jim. There was enough food to feed half the city of Salem: steaming crock pots filled with hearty soups, trays of finger sandwiches, tossed salad, potato salad, green pea and water chestnut salad, corn muffins and numerous cakes, pies and cookies. People huddled in small groups whispering together on the back deck and in the hallway. When she teared up her friends averted their eyes and followed this with vain attempts at encouragement. 

“Ruthie, honey, ya know Jim would want you to carry on, to live life to the fullest and…well, thrive,” said Ned’s wife. To which Ruth thought, Thrive rhymes with Alive and since I have become the walking dead I don’t suppose thriving is something I will be doing.

Catherine Amos, the head cashier at the Dollar Store chimed in, “I know just how you feel, Ruth. When I lost my Gregory I thought I would NEVER smile again.” Ruth had watched her hands gesticulating to make her point. She smelled like whiskey and cigarettes. “It seemed like the pain would NEVER go away, it would just go on and on with my heart breaking over and over. But it didn’t last forever. It does get better. It did for me and it will for you too.”

Ruth appreciated their efforts, she just didn’t believe she would THRIVE or that this godawful pain would get any better at all. She dutifully made her way amongst the guests. As her mother once said, when you have to do something and there is no way around it you have to just buck up! So, Ruth had received hugs and pats on the back graciously.

What she really wanted to do was give each one of them a resounding smack right across the kisser, for no good reason except that they were ALIVE. She wanted to scream, “Get out of here, the whole lot of you, and take all this goddam food with you!” None of them really knew Jim. They didn’t know how he was good hearted to the bone. They didn’t know that he got up each day and wrapped kindness around him like a cloak; passing it on throughout his day to anyone in need.

She didn’t scream though…she just held onto all those awful words and they bounced inside her skull from one side to the other like a ping pong ball. She sat in Jim’s leather armchair in the midst of this crowd of people and smoothed out the material of her black dress stretched across her lap. She said, “Thank you, so much” a million times while she concentrated on the tiny flower bud pattern on the living room drapes and on dust motes riding on beams of light from the final days of Indian Summer.

Ruth tackled the holidays (oh, how she had dreaded this) one at a time. She managed to put the lighted pumpkin decorations and the flying ghost mobile on the porch at Halloween. She bought and gave out candy to the kids oohing and aahing, perfunctorily at their costumes. Ned and Gilda invited her to Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family and she accepted, but by eight o’clock in the morning on Thanksgiving day she had chickened out. She didn’t want turkey, trimmings, friends or family. So she called in sick like she used to have to do sometimes when she was working and she felt guilty about it but she couldn’t face it, she just couldn’t. So she called Gilda and explained that she had come down with a very bad cold, holding her nostrils together as she spoke. “ I know, of all things…it just hit me last night and so I think I will be spending the day in bed” she had said. 

She didn’t though, she went straight to the bedroom threw a small travel bag on the bed and filled it with a nightgown, underwear, a pair of jeans, a tee shirt and a sweater, locked up the house and headed to Bandon. She parked the car at a rest-stop halfway there and called the Seaside Cabin Retreat. They had one cabin left. She could check in by four. She arrived at three and stopped on a cliff where there was a parking lot and a trail down to the ocean. She sat on a bench and watched the sea gulls dive and swoop, heard the crashing of waves against rock and felt the salty air on her face, in her heart, down to her soul and leaned into the peace of it.

The cabin (quite expensive at the holiday rate) was charming. She had unpacked, started a fire and brewed a pot of tea. She had crackers, cheese and an apple for dinner. She and Jim had always loved this coastal town. It had been their special place. They had lived in Salem for nearly forty years but she felt like a stranger there now. It wasn’t the same without Jim. It was empty. She was empty. As she sat watching the fire, a plan emerged. She would sell the house and move here where she and Jim had begun.

She slept like a baby that night under a mountain of quilts. She had fallen asleep to the sound of the waves and to the coast wind knocking against the cabin shutters. In the morning she decided she would go through the house room by room and give away anything that wasn’t essential. A few months later, by the time she found the key her house could have been showcased in a minimalist magazine. Photos, books and journals neatly boxed. The sofa and coffee table were given to a young couple two blocks over. She kept a bed, one end table and a small dresser; odds and ends for cleaning, a mop, vacuum and broom. She reduced the kitchen to small appliances and four place settings of dishes and silverware. She had 4 mugs, 4 glasses and 4 pots to cook with. Her realtor had said that staging this house, so clean and clutter free, would be a breeze! She had three bids the first week and the second week an offer was received for cash at the listed price from a doctor and his wife who had just started a practice in town.

On a whim, she brought the heart shaped box, the old bank book and the key next door to Ned to see if he could make heads of tails out of it. He might know if this bank existed. The name on the front was partially worn off but she could make out First Bank of… she thought it should have said, the First Bank of Mysteries. There were pages of faded entries for $2000.00 deposited like clockwork every month from January of 1980 through January of 2020. That added up to $720,000.00! Where had this money come from and why hadn’t she known about it? 

“Hmmm,” Ned said when he saw the key. “This is a key to a safe deposit box. It has our code number on it. Let me look in up on the computer… What do ya know,” he said, “It’s a key to Jim’s safety deposit box at our bank.”

“ What? We have always banked there but we don’t have a safe deposit box.”

“Maybe YOU don’t, but JIM does. I haven’t a clue about the bank book, though…it could be anywhere. Without the full name, I couldn’t even begin to guess…shall we go see what’s in Jim’s box? Once there, he handed her a form to fill out and sign for proof of identity. He said he would also need a copy of Jim’s Death Certificate and he was sorry that he hadn’t thought of that sooner.

“Not a problem, I have it right here, “ she said, fishing it out of her purse. He raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Well…carrying it around comes in mighty handy, doesn’t it” Ruth said.

In the box there was a folder which was marked, READ LAST-AFTER OPENING ENVELOPE. Inside the envelope was an index card with “827 Fig Street, Bandon, Oregon” written on the front and a house key taped to the back. Both of their mouths dropped open in surprise. Inside the folder was the deed to the house, fully paid for in January 2020 and letter from Jim. Ned gave her a hug and said he would leave her for a bit while she read this.

My dearest Ruth…I know this is a shock because if you are reading this I have died.

I have to apologize for lying to you because all those times when you asked me about money matters I told you I had set up a plan to supplement our retirement.

This is it. I planned it in case I died first so that you could return to the town we loved all our married life.

We will be together again one day.

Meanwhile, love me when you hear the waves and the wind and think of my kisses when you feel the salty air on your face and Know that I will always be near, loving you from where I am.

My Baby Ruth… I love you forever, Jim.