Part 3 — The Sewing Cabinet
Toby looked at the container and then at me, and he said it as plainly as a child can.
“It was in Miss Almas sewing machine cabinet. Under the bottom drawer, in a pocket she cut in the felt.”
My brother set his beer on the truck hood. The whole family turned to look at the giant steel bin.
“The truck comes tomorrow at seven,” Rick said weakly. “It is probably crushed already.”
“It is not crushed,” I said. “It is right there.”
My cousin Dale climbed into the container with a flashlight. The rest of us formed a line at the edge, and Toby pointed from the driveway. “Blue cabinet with the flower on the door. She said Mr. Rick would never touch it, because he said sewing was for old women.”
It took twenty minutes. Dale found the cabinet near the back, under a pile of curtains. He passed it out to the line of hands, and we set it gently on the lawn.
Toby ran his finger along the felt in the bottom drawer, found the slit, and drew out a long brown envelope.
Twenty thousand, one hundred forty dollars, in fives and tens and twenties, the way Mama had saved it, the way Toby had counted it with her in July.
My mother had hidden a fortune in the one corner of the house that her son was sure was worthless, and a twelve-year-old boy had guarded it with a pinky swear.
There was a note in the envelope in Mama handwriting. “Bev, this is yours. Rick will want it for his debts. Give him a roof, not the cash. And give Toby his pancakes whenever he wants them.”
Rick sat on the curb with his head in his hands. He admitted that the man in Mankato was threatening him and that he had been terrified. He said he had drunk his way through the first month and thrown out the house because he could not stand to look at it.
The family held a meeting at my kitchen table. Because Minnesota law requires the person handling an estate to answer to every heir, we agreed on a plain plan. The house would be listed with an honest agent. Rick would pay his debt out of his own share, and he would enter an outpatient program in Mankato.
He agreed with a hoarse voice, and he apologized to every cousin in the room.
The album, the apron and the recipe box we found in the bin, most of them, wet and creased but whole. Toby helped me dry each page of the album on the clothesline.
The next Saturday I made pancakes in Moms old skillet. Toby said grace first.
He asked God to bless Miss Alma, and Rick, who had come to the kitchen counter quietly, bowed his head too.