Inheritance Box

“I remember!” He shouted, jumping to his feet and scrambling over the back of the couch. “I remember where Dad said he put it now!”

Lizette watches her brother, Carmen, as he races down the hallway to the series of doors at the end. To her surprise, Carmen doesn’t go into their parents’ room but instead opens the door to her old bedroom. 

When she moved out, Mom made it her hobby room with a sewing machine and bookshelves full of books with a small comfy chair by the window. 

When Mom died, Dad made it a storage room- which is to say he made it a room avoided at all costs. 

Carmen’s room remained a shrine to the amazingness that was, is, and always will be Carmen. Even now, after a decade, it has his myriad of trophies- freshly polished every week- lined how he left them when he moved out at 19.

Lizette remembers with a wince when Mom asked if she wanted her old teddy bear from childhood, and when she said yes, Mom groaned and said, “I’ll see if I can pull it from the bins.”

Lizette was always the afterthought, even before Carmen was born. She remembers distinctly the time she was left at the mall- not forgotten- left. Mom had said to wait until she didn’t see her or Dad, then go find an officer. 

When she turned up on their doorstep with the police three hours later, Mom said they had been worried sick looking for her- the cops bought it, but that night she heard both her parents crying in their bedroom. 

Lizette often blamed Mom and Dad’s poor parenting of her on how young they were: both were barely out of their teens. They waited to have Carmen until they were closing in on their 30s. 

Carmen was obviously lucky they waited, but seeing them do right only ever made her childhood sting more. 

His heavy footsteps thud down the hall towards her. “Lizzie, I found it!”

He jumpers over the back of the couch and lands on his ass effortlessly. He’s holding a weird wood box that looks older than the country. 

“That’s Dad’s box?” Lizette asks her little brother. 

“Has to be. In the will he said, ‘Carmen knows’, this is the only box I remember Dad telling me about.” He looks at her triumphantly. “What do you think’s in it?”

“Only way to know is to open it.” Lizette shrugs. 

Carmen looks at her excitedly, then slips the key the lawyer gave them at the wake inside the tiny brass lock. Delicately, he twists the key, and the latch bolts up. 

He looks at his sister again. “This feels like Jumanji.”

“Just open it,” Lizette says harsher than she intended. “Please,” she adds gently. 

Carmen opens the lid softly, peeking in as the opening exposes more and more. When it’s all the way open, he relaxes and looks dejected. 

“I don’t get it,” he blinks. 

“Lemme see,” Lizette grabs the box from him. 

A baggie of ashes rests inside a velvet lining. She lifts the ashes gently, afraid they’ll burst. 

“What are they?” Carmen asks.

“Not what, who?” 

Nothing under the baggie, so Lizette pulls up at the velvet lining in the box. The box is so old, she assumes this will be a grandparent or even a great-grandparent. Under the lining, however, is a birth certificate dated May 12th, 1982. 

“That’s my birthday,” she mutters to the ashes. 

“What is it?” Carmen asks again, more urgently this time. 

Lizette reads the paper aloud. “Hereby certifies the live birth of Suzette Carol Willett on this day May twelve nineteen eighty-two to Bradley and Cassidy Willett.”

“I don’t understand,” Carmen leans forward, elbows on his knees. 

“It means I had a sister- we had a sister.” Lizette’s voice is cool and unnervingly calm as if she were a robot reciting words in her programming. 

“She was alive when she was born,” he states. “So where’s her death certificate?”

“And why was this the important thing Dad just had to have us find?” Lizette adds, color draining from her face, a knot forming in her stomach. 

“Maybe a closure thing?” Carmen suggests.

“We didn’t know about her. This is like one last way to torture me, not heal me.” 

“Do you remember having a sister?”

“I don’t remember there being any other kids around- ever.” Lizette squints. “Like, no cousins, no friends- nothing. You were the only other kid I remember ever coming inside the house.” Flashes of a lonely childhood flash behind her eyes like a flipbook. 

“It may have been too hard for them after she died,” Carmen frowns, always seeing the softer side of their parents was a skill only he had. 

“Then why have a second kid? Clearly, she died in between the ten years from me to you.” Lizette squeezes her eyes tight. “What else was in his will?”

“You know, now that you mention it, the wording is weird. I’m the only one named, then in other places, it just says ‘the offspring’; it’s like I was an only child.” 

“Maybe you were,” Lizette says. “Maybe that’s what he’s trying to say.”

“That doesn’t make sense- you’re a twin, that’s the opposite of an only child.”

“Where’s my birth certificate, then?” You have one- Mom gave it to you- and this kid had one- where’s mine?” An indescribable panic festers in her throat, acid bubbles in her belly. Her mind is forming the thought like it had always been there, ready to jump out. 

Lizette stares into Carmen’s eyes as they both come to the conclusion.

“That would be nuts, Lizzie,” her brother speaks first. 

“A quick DNA test would rule it out,” she half shrugs. 

“Is that what you really want to do? I know you didn’t like them- and I know you have plenty of good reason- but, they’re gone now. It’s just you and me. Do you really want to know what happened?”

Lizette stares at the ground, considering all possible outcomes, none of which are good. 

“We find out you weren’t Mom and Dad’s, will you stop there, or will you want to know where you came from? Which will open a much larger can of worms.” Carmen scoots closer to Lizette. “Will it be worth the scar?”

“What if that time at the mall they weren’t abandoning me? What if they were trying to give me back?”

Carmen sighs. “What if, what if, what if. The fact is, with them both gone, we’ll never know for sure; it will always be half conjecture. But what will happen is you’ll go looking for the family that loves you like you want, and I’ll be left without any family at all.” He grabs his sister’s hand. “I’m sorry they weren’t good to you, I’m sorry that this isn’t easy, I’m sorry Dad did this in this way. But please, Lizzie, please don’t leave me now.”

Her brother’s voice drips with sadness, and his wide begging eyes remind her of when they were young and he wanted a cookie before dinner. She’d always cave, even though Mom would yell at her and Dad would send her to bed without eating. She never could say no to Carmen, no matter what it meant for her future. 

“Someone out there has been missing me since 1982,” Lizette whispers. “Can we start with a DNA test, then go from there, together?”

Carmen rests his head on his big sister’s shoulder. “Together. I’ll help you. No matter what, I’m your brother, you can’t leave me, promise?”

She kisses his temple like she used to do when he was scared of storms and crept into her bedroom at night. “I haven’t left you yet, I don’t plan to do it any time soon.”