Chapter 1
The box was light.
After the notary finished reading the will, my brother, Damian Knight, laughed out loud.
The house went to him.
The bankbook was his, too.
What I got was the cardboard box at my feet.
I opened it and took a quick look inside.
A few old clothes, two yellowed notebooks, a photograph of me at six years old.
My sister-in-law, Candace Church, couldn't help herself—the corner of her mouth twitched.
"Alright, let's go."
Damian stood up.
The notary spoke suddenly.
"One moment, Ms. Knight." He looked at me. "There's one more page to the will.
"Your father's request was...
"This page is for you alone."
Damian's smile froze on his face.
*****
The notary asked them to step out of the room.
As Candace reached the door, she shot me a look over her shoulder.
I knew that look all too well.
For six years, this was the look she'd always given me—what can you possibly have?
The door closed behind them.
The notary slid a folded sheet of paper across the table to me.
"Ms. Knight, this is your father's handwriting. It was notarized along with the will," he said.
I opened it up.
It was Dad's handwriting.
His handwriting was crooked; in the last two years, his hand trembled badly, and his writing looked like a child's tracing.
[Iris,
By the time you read this, I'll be gone.
Take a good look at what's in the box.
It's not just old clothes. It's the most valuable thing I've ever owned.
There are two notebooks—one with a black cover, the other with a blue one.
Take your time with the black notebook. You'll need a calculator for the numbers in there.
As for the blue one...]
There was a blot of ink on that line, like he had let his pen rest there for ages.
[The blue notebook is just for you. Read it when you're by yourself.
I'm sorry, Iris.
It's not that I didn't love you.]
Those last four words were the biggest and the most crooked.
[I was just too afraid to show it.]
I read the letter three times.
My palms were sweaty.
I crouched down and pulled the black notebook out of the box.
I opened to the first page—date, amount, recipient.
Each line was written out neatly, one after another.
[March 2019. Pension deposited: 1400 dollars; 1200 dollars automatically transferred; balance: 200 dollars.
[April 2019. Pension deposited: 1400 dollars; 1200 dollars automatically transferred; balance: 200 dollars.
[May 2019...]
Every page was the same.
Every month, all that remained was 200 dollars.
I kept flipping through the pages.
After going through more than ten pages, everything was still laid out the same way.
By the last few pages, his handwriting was trembling more and more, some lines were crooked, but he never missed a number.
The last line on the final page read.
[November 2024. Pension deposited: 1400 dollars; 1200 dollars automatically transferred; balance: 2700 dollars. Month 72.]
Seventy-two months.
1200 dollars multiplied by 72.
I didn't bother with a calculator.
The number was already in my head.
84 thousand dollars. That was the total.
I closed the notebook.
I couldn't bring myself to open the blue one.
It wasn't that I didn't want to read it.
I was just afraid I'd break down and cry right there.
The notary murmured something next to me, but I was too lost in my thoughts to really hear him.
I put both notebooks back in the box and held it close.
The box was light.
But I hugged it for a long while before I managed to stand up.
When I stepped out, Damian was leaning against the hallway wall, scrolling through his phone.
"Done reading?" he asked.
"Yeah," I replied.
"What did it say?" he continued.
I pulled the box closer to my chest, holding it tight.
"Nothing important. Just said not to get rid of the old clothes," I replied.
He scoffed.
Candace was already by the elevator, waving him over.
"Let's go. We still need to shop for furniture this afternoon. Once the house is officially ours, it's getting a full renovation," she said.
They left.
Just before the elevator doors closed, I caught her laughing and saying, "Seriously? She actually went and got a box of trash notarized."
I stood there in the hallway, staring down at the box in my arms.
Trash?
84 thousand dollars.
Just you wait.