What I Never Said

The book was the only thing they had left. Winnie knew that. Everyone in the family knew that. His last book, the will inside, one lucky winner. Was it a terrible way to decide who kept the family fortune? Perhaps, but everybody was too busy looking for the book to care. 

Winnie had checked the entire house, top to bottom. Frank had gone in his sleep, quietly and fast, no pain. His overpriced mattress probably made the trip easier. 

Down by her hip was a desk, the same desk they used to play hide and seek in as children, so many pictures laying on top. Their grandfather had been a toymaker in London, the best of his kind. Children loved his simple and open-ended creations that could be a million different things. He had a child’s magical touch, a colorful way to see the world. Winnie’s mother, Rebecca, hated that. It’s probably why she was the first to leave despite being the youngest. Money couldn’t buy a daughter’s love, Frank had known that, but he loved the craft more than his family most days. 

By the small crevice in the library, Winnie slid her fingers between the cracks of a wall. More specifically, the wall by her grandfather’s desk, a plank of wood that could go unnoticed by everyone else. Everyone except Winnie. She’d discovered it on one of her adventures around her grandfather’s mansion. His studio was her favorite place. It smelled of him and burning tobacco— the kind that would make your throat itchy and your eyes water. He loved it. The doctors said it was the main reason he went when he did. Three days before today, to be exact.

Frank King’s lawyers had walked into the mansion on the day of the wake, looking for Winnie’s mother. Rebecca had been sitting by a massive window overlooking the gardens, the hushed sound of conversation in the background. Winnie was sat looking at her, trying to decipher what she could possibly be feeling. She’d been a cold, distant daughter, only ever visiting her father when he was ill or when he would host an event that would make her absence look terrible.  

 Winnie knew there was a number of reasons she resented him, but the main was probably all the attention he gave to the world from his shop, leaving barely any for his daughter. Grandma Ruthie had been kind but too soft-mannered to ever protest her husband’s behavior toward their children. Her uncle Tom got the better end of the stick, of course. The firstborns were always the luckiest and unluckiest, simultaneously every time. The rest of the children were unfortunate, but Rebecca was omitted. Her three older siblings knew that as well as her. Her children, including Winnie, knew that too. 

In multiple sets of complicated words, the lawyers explained that the family fortune was up for grabs, left for the first person that presented Frank King’s will to them. Of course, every son, daughter, grandchild, and uncle twice removed began the search immediately. Rebecca, however, climbed into her car and drove away that day, back home after the wake without another word to their family. Winnie could only watch, bereft, and wondering where was her place in the situation. Why would she devote her time to look for the fortune? Would her mother agree? Would she resent Winnie too? Charles and Isobel had walked by the studio a while ago in heavy hurried steps, looking for the will without hesitation. Sometimes it felt like Winnie was the only one who considered their mother, most of them favoring Frank in their private, emotional civil war. 

Time resumed, and she let the pads of her fingers press tighter to the plank of wood, her legs cramping from crouching down in between the oakwood desk and the wall. She heard the board give, and her eyes widened, a part of her feeling surprised the secret compartment was still there. She slid her nails in between the wall and the board, pulling as hard as she could until the wood wholly detached. She recalled how easy it was as a child, how fast she could slide her tiny fingers in between the ridges. Now, she worried her recently manicured nails were ruined. Frank would’ve scoffed at her droning thoughts.

Her heart raced as she took the board and placed it softly on the carpet, trying her best not to alert her siblings. Once she was sure the board was resting perfectly on the floor, she felt around the space, eyes squinting as she tried to make out the dark hole in the wall. Finally, when she had begun to lose faith there was anything there, a small piece of paper raced through her index finger. She gasped and let her finger go over the paper again, unconvinced she’d actually found something there. 

Pulling on a corner, Winnie managed to unearth the paper from the bottom of the box, and her eyes immediately scanned over the writing. It was not the will. Her chest deflated slightly, but she knew it had something to do with the will from the text alone. 

'It was always you, no matter what toys I conjured, my best inventions lived at home, next to where my heart lived.'

It had to be a clue. Frank had made it into a game, a guessing game. Winnie racked her brain, revisiting every memory of her grandfather, running the words in her head. 

“The workshop,” She whispered to herself. The room in the basement where he would descend upon during the day and emerge from in the night, with a new creation in his hand, always eager, proud. She almost squeaked with excitement. 

Onward Winnie went, going down to where she’d already searched, except now a new clue laid in her hand, thrills, and joy in her veins. She was ahead; she had something the others didn’t. Approaching the main table where Frank would sit, she looked around and tried to see the world through his eyes. The eyes of a man with a child’s heart. Everything colorful, bright, full of hope and light. She looked toward his old lamp. It had an inscription. R+F. The wood marked by something sharp. Her grandparents’ initials. Another shiver down her arms. She stretched a delicate finger and raised the lamp, heart racing. There, underneath the base, laid a folded paper. 

'So, while words can never explain what my heart feels, these letters, all clumped together forming words, will have to suffice in sharing with you everything I never said. All the things I should’ve screamed from rooftops. The feelings I should’ve made clear to you before I was gone.'

Winnie felt something twist in her chest. The words suddenly sounded wistful, filled with love and heartbreak. She heard herself sigh. Her brother William talked loud above the basemenr, breaking the moment.

“Where’s Winnie? Do you think she found something?”

“I heard her in grandpa’s studio a while ago. I haven’t seen her since.”

“She was Frank’s favorite. She definitely knows something. Help me find her.”

Winnie’s heart raced for a different reason then. Adrenaline coursing through her. She immediately switched the workshop light off so it wouldn’t alert Will she’d been down there. Then, with light, quick footsteps, she felt around for the lamp, making her best attempt at leaving it the way she’d found it. No reason why she should help her siblings with clues. 

Decisively she climbed the stairs two at a time, knowing exactly which boards creaked the loudest after sneaking down there so many times when she was younger. She managed to step out of the basement without being seen. Then, after quietly removing her shoes, she was off only in her socks, up all the century-old staircases, past different corridors, through many doors and rooms, and past a bathroom where Isobel was walking into. Finally, she safely stood before the attic door, and with practiced ease, she opened the door without making a single squeak. The old, rusty door made every kind of sound unless it was swung open so fast it was almost a blur.

Inside, she danced around the floorboards once more until she was below a staircase leading to the mansion’s roof. Of course, such an old structure was bound to have an odd layout. Nevertheless, she’d always found it charming. 

Up the last ladder, she stood on the roof. Boston’s biting winter wind slashed by her face, making her shiver and her teeth chatter. She did not mind it as she walked in controlled steps toward all the different corners of the rectangular space. She looked down at the gardens, where time and time again, she’d played all sorts of games and adventures. Winnie smiled as she remembered falling knee-first by the parking lots full of pebbles and rocks and Charles hiding by the sides of the house from their parents, trying his first pull of a stolen cigarette as Isobel and Winnie watched with rapt attention. She laughed, remembering Will falling asleep on a balcony and making their father think he’d been kidnapped. 

Finally, she squinted at the center of the roof. She noticed a red string holding a paper dancing against the contradicting winds from the house. She walked fast to grab it, and as she read the inscription, she knew where the will was, heart beating in her throat. 

'I cannot take pride in saying I was a good father or a respectable grandparent, but I hope that I left behind enough knowledge and love to have formed my family into intelligent, caring people, who, unlike me, know that greed and fortune is not everything. I should’ve been better; I should’ve held you more, told you more often the infinite feelings my soul felt for all of you. I believe I have more regrets than achievements, so I hope you learn from an old man’s mistakes and live your life more ardently, love your people more obviously, and learn your lessons more truthfully. My fortune is the fruit of all my hard work, but my family is the fruit of all that I could give as a human in this life. Was it enough? Did I say, do, love, or give enough to have made a difference? What is enough? I will never know. Indeed, a legacy is planting seeds in a garden one never gets to see. 

I hope my time was spent well enough and that you all, too, spend your time well enough as well. My last, written, official will lies where it all began. It is where all of this was born, where it unraveled. I hope I did enough for you to understand. I go fast, I go easy, hoping that there are more children who smile at me in my next life too, as you all did once. I love you, even if I never made it obvious. 

Frank.'

Winnie felt the wet stain of tears slide off her chin, down her neck. The cold did not make it any better, but she did not shiver.

Where it all began.

It was muscle memory that safely guided her down from the roof, down the attic, down all the staircases and corridors, and out the door. She had her car keys and wallet, her sister calling for her from a balcony on the second floor. 

The drive was quick, down five long roads, a few turns here and there, and suddenly an abandoned store with a ‘For Sale’ sign in a deserted street. ‘King’s Toy World’ read the shadow where there used to be a sign of Frank’s first store. Winnie forced the lock a few times, but it did not budge. Making her way to the back, she found a lone window was ajar. With all her upper body strength, she managed to wiggle into a supply room, at the very back of what used to be filled with every type of handmade toy. 

She knew the place, as she’d first seen it when she’d been no more than five years old. Though first the store didn’t last long and Frank moved his business to a bigger and better location, Winnie always remembered how wonderful and fun it’d been to spend her days wandering around the back, looking at all the workers assembling and wrapping her grandfather’s creations. 

A red door to the side of the lone cash register led down a set of stairs. Down the stairs, a basement, very unlike the one at the mansion. Stuffy, small, and barely accessible. Winnie ducked under a loose piece of wood from the low ceiling and stood before her grandfather’s old desk. Everything had dust and dirt. On top of the worktable lay the will.

Winnie did not immediately duck for it but took her time to look around. 

It was the beginning, where Frank and Ruth met. He’d been selling wood for a living when a pretty girl came around without a clue what type of plank to buy for a new nightstand. She’d been dressed impeccably, red lipstick and a baby blue handkerchief around her auburn red hair. Frank was besotted from the first day he laid eyes on her. Ruth had never needed wood for a nightstand but an excuse to talk to the handsome, young man at the lumber yard. In the end, it was the beginning of a love story between a professional pianist and an avid toymaker. They fell madly in love and welcomed four children into the world. Each had their own gifts. Each had their own children, with their own gifts too. Ruthie passed after fifty years of marriage to Frank. He was left all alone, with a giant empire and many children and grandchildren he never knew how to handle. In the end, some garnered resentment, and others grew distant. Some grew closer, and some were indifferent. In the end, Winnie was at the end of the line, looking back at her grandfather’s story, and in front of her, laid more than twenty toys, all lined perfectly on the table. 

As she approached, Winnie noticed that each one had a name. Rebecca’s was a wooden heart, painted glossy red with a parting to open it down the middle, inside a note for her. Isobel’s was a chef’s hat, a message addressed to her too. Winnie found hers down the line.

A wooden box that had the shape of a book. Inside, she opened it and found her note neatly tied and tucked. 

‘Write your own stories, darling Winnie. Write the world away until it’s all yours.’

Every box and toy had been custom-made to fit their passions, their personalities. Winnie couldn’t help the tear that formed by her eye once again. She eyed the will and wondered how the rest of the family were bound to find it. She’d found it because of the secret compartment on the wall of the studio, the one only she’d known about with Frank. Were there more clues? What could she do with it? A few things came to mind, but none seemed good enough. Was she insane for leaving behind all her grandfather’s money? Perhaps. 

Climbing out of the basement, Winnie understood her grandfather’s wish. It was now only up to the rest of her family to understand it too. She’d make her own fortune, love obviously, and give enough. Frank’s legacy.