Part 3 — Behind The Oven
I set my nut driver down because my flashlight lit up a folded flag. It lay on a shelf inside the hollow in a triangle of deep blue, with a small wooden box on top.
The man who had hired me, a quiet fellow named Mr. Ortega, stepped up beside me. I told him to go slow. I told him this was not a thing for a hurry.
In the box were a Purple Heart, a Bronze Star, a photograph of a young man in uniform, and a letter on thin paper. The soldier was smiling the way boys do who think the war will be over by Christmas.
The letter was from a commanding officer to a mother. It was dated 1969. It said her son had saved four men from a burning transport, and that the Army would not forget him.
The previous owner, a widow named Mrs. Haskins, had hidden it all behind her oven. Her neighbors said she could not bear to see the medals on a shelf every day, and could not bear to give them away.
Mr. Ortega sat down on his own kitchen floor. His father had served in the same war. He turned the medal over gently and said, “This should not be in a wall.”
We called the VFW post in Grafton the next morning. A commander named Delbert Shaw drove over in his uniform jacket and stood in the kitchen with his cap in his hands.
The county records led us to a nephew, Daniel Haskins, living in Morgantown. He was the last of the family, and he had never known the medals existed.
The law is simple: the house belongs to the buyer, but a family heirloom of this kind can be given back, and Mr. Ortega did not need to be asked twice. He drove it down himself on Saturday.
Daniel received the flag standing up. The post members came to attention in the driveway, six old men in blue jackets, and a boy from the local high school played Taps on a trumpet.
Some things are hidden in a wall not to be forgotten, but because the heart is not ready to let anyone see them.
I installed the new oven the following Monday. When Mr. Ortega paid me, he added a hundred-dollar tip and asked that I put it in the VFW coffee can on my way out.