I turned the key in unit 118 and rolled up the door, bracing myself, and the light fell on a cedar chest, open, and all around it, carefully wrapped and labeled, the makings of a life: quilts, dishes, linens, a set of silver, each tagged in Harolds hand with a date years in the future.
I knelt by that chest and read the nearest tag. It said: for Katies wedding day, whenever it comes.
The little one the desk girl mentioned was our granddaughter Katie, and Harold had been secretly assembling a hope chest for her, a complete trousseau for the wedding day she was still a decade away from having, so that a piece of her grandfather would be with her when she started her own home.
Katie was only nine. But Harold, it seemed, had been thinking about the woman she would become. Every Saturday, he had brought her here, and together they had collected and made the things a young woman needs to start a home: a hand-stitched quilt they sewed together, dishes he taught her to pick, linens, recipes, a little of everything.
His letter said: Old girl, I know it seems daft, building a hope chest for a nine-year-old. But I did the math, and I knew I might not live to see our Katie married. So I decided to be there anyway, the only way I could. Every Saturday Katie and I have been filling this chest for her someday. She thinks it is a grand game. It is really my way of walking her down the aisle when I cannot. Please, keep adding to it as she grows, and on her wedding day, give it to her, and tell her Grandpa packed it with love, a little every Saturday, for years.
I wept over that cedar chest my husband filled for a wedding he knew he would never see.
Him and the little one. My Harold had found a way to be at his granddaughters wedding decades early, one Saturday at a time.
Katie, when I saw her next, told me all about their Saturdays, their secret game of filling the special chest, though she did not fully understand yet what it was for. I did not tell her everything. She is too young. But I will keep their secret, and their tradition.
I add to the chest as she grows now, a little every year, the way Harold did. And one day, on her wedding morning, I will give my granddaughter the hope chest her grandfather started when she was nine, and I will tell her that he packed it with love, every Saturday, for years, so he could be there after all.
My daughter still did not know why her father spent Saturdays away. Now she knows he was walking his granddaughter down an aisle a decade early. Him and the little one. He found a way to never miss her wedding. I will make sure she knows, on that far-off happy day, exactly how much her Grandpa loved her.