Coming Soon…

Verbal Snacks II

More short stories are on their way. So many objects and triple interpretations were swirling around my head—I had to continue. Look for the second volume—as an appetizer---

The Checkbook

Nancy S. Sims

It lay there taunting me. The saddle-colored leather was worn on the edges. Inside was a pen from a long defunct bank. I cautiously leafed through the ledger reluctant to appear too voyeuristic. Guilt set in for not visiting my Aunt Celia before she died. Oh sure, there were phone calls to her caretaker but, over the course of a year they had diminished, frankly they were cryptic. I could never tell if the aide was hesitant to speak around my aunt or held me in contempt. Hard to judge when you are more than twenty-five hundred miles away and Facetime is not an option. 

Get to the task at hand. I said aloud as if to spur me on. I had been deemed to be the designated executor and all around ‘eliminator’ of all the detritus in her home. There was plenty to sort though. Looking around the room and just opening her desk jogged my memory of happier times, before illness and the crust of aging had settled around her. 

She had been a single woman with no children—I was it. I was the appointed protector of her legacy. I was the one who would decide what was valuable or what memento was worth passing on. And I was now the voyeur seeking to understand her pleasures, her intentions. I thought the checkbook might give me some direction. Perhaps, I could determine what charity she favored or what beauty parlor should be called to cancel upcoming appointments. She had been meticulous about her appearance. No matter how debilitated she felt, the salon was her refuge and elixir. 

I wanted to make a list of those establishments she had frequented over the years and thank them for their kindness and support; knowing she would have wanted me to do this.

“Always remember the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker,” she had quoted. “They are the people who take care of you, and sometimes know you better than your own family.” I couldn’t disagree with that point. 

I flipped open and shut the checkbook multiple times. The texture of the cover became a talisman for me. Aunt Celia’s hands had run over the leather. Her fingerprints were stored within these pages. Her precise cursive handwriting outlined a life that led and lived an active one. Checks to the symphony, opera and local theater were indicative of her love of culture. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU were reflections of her support for activism.

The outliers—the organizations I could not recognize—they were the ones that intrigued me. Month after month there were checks listed with symbols next to them. They looked like a computer code I could not decipher. An old yellowed phone book lay on top of the antique secretary desk. It had been thumbed through. Dog-eared pages might prove to be a cross- reference. I sat on the faded floral cushion settling into the indentation searching for answers. 

The light faded behind the tapestry draped windows. I had spent hours intrigued by the checkbook register. A pattern seemed to form and brought a smile to my face. Aunt Celia had been true to herself through the years. Consistency reigned. Electric and power bills were all rounded up. It made the balancing effort easier. Leave it to Aunt Celia.

And I scrolled through the five-dollar checks that she so diligently sent my children; the same amount my siblings and I received decades before. Aunt Celia must have ignored the concept of inflation. 

I took several deep breaths to calm myself and steel myself for what else lay in the desk drawer. The puzzle pieces of her life would just have to wait until tomorrow.