The Trunk part 1

After Michaels grandmother Angela passed on, he was given the task to clean out her attic as, at the age of twenty seven, he was the youngest and strongest out of all the other 12 living relatives. Michael doted on his nanny and was deeply saddened after her passing. It took all that he could muster to even contemplate the gargantuan task ahead.

Michael was perspiring profusely preparing to clamour up the stira attic stairs. Just to get the steps down he had to hop up onto the rickety wooden stool from his grandmothers back bedroom and pull on a tiny hook, opening the hatch where he had to think quickly as the steps came at him with speed. With one hand on the steps, he used the other to flick on the light, the massive attic illuminated by three 100 watt bulbs suspended intermittently from the gable of the roof. With the steps down, Michael wiped his brow and returned the stool to its rightful home. As he ascended to the third floor, he found himself puzzled as he couldn’t make out how the arthritic, frail old woman got up there to put the different pieces of her life out of the way of such an already cluttered house. 

The fact that his grandmother was a hoarder was obvious. She had every nook and cranny of the house covered in trinkets and keepsakes, some worth quite a bit of money. Michael was convinced when he saw different pieces of furniture scattered around him, that his nanny had paid someone to get them up there…there was no way she could have done it herself. When he rubbed a finger against one of the boxes as it was caked in dust. He winced and rubbed his finger against the leg of his trousers. Overwhelmed, he decided that this was a job that was going to take an enormous chunk of his time, yet he smiled as he noticed there was a box with each individual member of the families name on. 

Deciding to give the boxes to the allocated family member unopened was probably one of his finer moments. Only god knew what his nanny had in them, and after carrying all thirteen down and onto the upstairs landing, he had made quite a bit of space in the still cluttered attic. 

His shirt wringing with sweat, Michael made a start on putting his grandmothers treasures into three piles; bin; keep; sell. Michael was a bit of a wheeler dealer and was confident he would be able to sell a lot of the items he found…unless one of his family members claimed them first. 

Before he made the decision to spend his weekend doing the clear out, Michael had stopped by IKEA and had bought a dozen clear plastic bins with lids. Most of what he found, that he was convinced could be valuable, was already covered in newspaper. He unwrapped and rewrapped each such item and started to fill the bins, marking each as he went with a black sharpie as a reminder of what he had placed in them. 

Ten bins in, Michael stopped to acknowledge that he had barely made a dent and that he would have to go back to IKEA on his way home from work on Monday evening, He had been beaten by the room for one day. He looked around it once more just to see if there was anything he could easily sort through…after all he still had 2 containers left. 

For some reason, his eye was drawn towards the corner of the northern side of the attic. He went over to investigate. He thought he saw something intriguing under three black sacks. He wasn't just going to go to the bright and shiny new toy, he had to earn the right first. After putting the contents of the bags, which happened to be old, musty blankets that he wouldn’t even inflict on the Saint Vincent de Paul, into the bin pile, he realised that what caught his eye was a massive, wooden trunk.  

Michael opened the trunk and gasped with excitement. ‘Finally,’ he said, ‘something i can really get my teeth into!’ Michael was a big history buff and, now that he has a new baby on the way, he was very interested in genealogy. To his delight, the trunk contained nothing but letters and photographs. Some of the photographs were in albums, but the majority were loose, the really old ones. Michael, ready for a bit of history, sat himself down on the dusty wooden floor, beside the trunk, and proceeded to investigate the contents. He couldn’t help but smile as he came across pictures of his grandmothers wedding. ‘She was so beautiful!’ he uttered softly, caressing his nanny's face with his dainty fingers, her fingers. 

About ¾ of the way through, Michael found a stack of letters bound by an elastic band that snapped the second he touched it. He didn’t see the harm in reading them, and as they were all dated, he decided to start from the oldest and work through them that way. He was shocked as they were all from his grandfather to his nanny. They were love letters.

As he began to read the letters, he felt slightly uneasy. He was about to delve into his families past, but more importantly, he was about to unlock the key to his grandmothers young love life. He shrugged his shoulders, ‘she cant tell me to stop, she is dead…right?’ He thought to himself, suddenly turning to be sure that she wasn't watching him.

Presuming from the content that they were love letters from his grandfather, Michael thought something seemed a bit off. He couldn’t recall his grandfather being in the war…he was a doctor. Michael himself was in the army and was in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and even though his grandfather was gone long before his enlisting, he could never recall any stories, or anecdotes, with the sentence ‘pops’ and ‘war’ in it. 

Michael quickly looked at the envelope that particular letter came from….it was dated January 1944.  Michael knew that his grandmother died at 96 and was almost certain she married his grandfather at 19. It took him a minute to do the math….she married him in 1945. How could she have married his grandfather and already have a husband that served in the war. His face turned to sorrow. There is one thing that is certain in war…..casualties. 

As he continued to read the next letter and the next and the next. It transpired that his grandmother had married a Charlie Green in 1943, 6 months before he went to serve in the war with the British. Michaels jaw dropped as this Charlie person told his grandmother in the last of twenty letters that he would be home before the baby arrived. ‘Baby? What baby?’ He asked himself. He rifled through the trunk in search of more letters from this Charlie Green, but all he found was an unusual letter from the British government. It proclaimed that Charlie had died in the line of duty and there was a copy of the death certificate. 

Michael stared at the piece of paper saying his grandmother was a widow at 18 and felt the blood drain from his face. He noticed that the room was spinning and disassociated a little before the shout at the bottom of the staira snapped him back to the present. It was his mother informing him that she had a breakfast roll ready for him. He looked up slowly and orientated himself. He looked at the three bulbs hanging from the gable and then back to the trunk. ‘I’m coming mom!’ He shouted in response. Then he heard footsteps on the attic stairs. His mothers head popped up from the hole in the floor. She smiled at him, a smile which he mirrored. She rested her arms on the attic floor, placing the roll and a bottle of coke in front of her. She was impressed at the rate her son was ploughing through his mission. 

As Michael got up, his knees cracked from stiffness. He moved towards his mother,  unbeknownst to himself Charlie Greens death cert was still in his hand. He sat back down on the floor, his feet dangling out the whole in the ground. His mother, Margaret, climbed the remaining steps and joined him. He placed the death cert between them and picked up his breakfast roll. It had his favourite fillings in it, sausages. It probably wouldn’t be classified as a breakfast roll to most, but to Michael it was heaven. 

He was unable to open his mouth wide enough to encompass the whole roll because of the quantity of sausages inside. His mother was a real Irish mammy who was always over protective of him as he was the only boy, and the youngest of four. She was always saying that he needed ‘fattening up’ since he moved out of the family home and into a beautiful apartment with his girlfriend, Kayleigh. It was hard for her to let go of her baby, but she was getting better at it. 

Michael closed his eyes as he chewed and didn’t realise how hungry he actually was until the roll was suddenly gone. He noticed his mother staring at the death cert. She picked it up as Michael chewed the last bit of sausage. She studied the page carefully and, with her brow furrowed, asked who Charlie Green was. ‘He was nanny’s first husband!’ Michael swallowed hard as he noticed his mother have the same reaction as he did…the blood drained from her face.

As Michael slowly sipped the 500ml bottle of coke, he put his hand around his mother, and explained how he had read the twenty letters, each 3 days apart. His mother looked shocked, but not to the degree in which he had. Had she known? Michael looked a his mother expectantly. He needed answers.

As Margaret wiped tears from her face with a tissue that was lodged in the sleeve of her jumper, she couldn’t meet Michaels eye. ‘She has to know something!’ He thought and gently touched her arm. When she flinched he was certain there was information he was not privy to. 

‘Mom, is there something I don't know?’ He asked bluntly.

Margaret swallowed hard before delving into the story of as to why he never met any of his grandmothers relatives.

‘You see, when nanny met your grandfather, she was heavily pregnant. Your grandfather, as you know, was a gynaecologist. She was his first patient all those years ago. They met in a consultation room and he was overly sympathetic towards your nanny, and she doted on him. He was there when your father was born, he was the first baby he ever delivered. He handed dad to nanny and knew then and there that that was where his heart lay. He took nanny and baby in and five months later they were married. He claimed dad as his own, even put his name on the birth cert.’ 

Michael fought hard to pick his mandible off the floor. He swallowed hard before saying; ‘so pops wasn't my real grandfather?’ In a soft voice, not sure if others knew the deep, dark secret. He stared at the bureau in front of him, that he had yet to go through, with wide eyes. He was brought out of his trance by his mothers warm hand on his shoulder. His father, who would be 78 on his next birthday, and his mother, who was only 64, meant the world to Michael. He shook his head like a wet dog and finished his bottle of coke, needing the sugar.

After kissing his mother on the cheek, to thank her for the food, Michael hopped up and returned to the illusive trunk. He was curious to see if there was any other trace of his biological grandfather. He was curious about his military background. Michael had joined straight out of school, against his families wishes. He decided to join the army purely because he didn’t know what he wanted to do, or in what direction his life was going. He was either going to learn a trade or end up in prison, or both. The army was the only logical choice for him. He served in the infantry division and wondered if this Charlie person did the same. 

As there were no more letters he could find he had to turn to the photographs instead. True enough, there were three pictures of his nanny with a man in uniform. ‘He was a handsome devil!’ He mumbled to himself, shocked at how similar they were. ‘That’s where my freckles come from!’ He smiled to himself. 

After all of the contents of the trunk were sorted, Michael looked at his watch, it was well passed midnight. He wiped his face in his smelly shirt and looked around; he had god only knows how many piles of photos, all in their retrospective chronological order. Both himself and his grandmother were similar as they both seemed to put dates on the back of all the photos they owned. A fact he was proud of. There happened to be seven pictures of Charlie Green, three in uniform, one of his wedding day to his nanny, and the last three were of him dressed in the cork colours holding up the Liam MacArthur cup. His nanny was in the background in one of those the other with her on Charlie’s shoulders holding the cup. Michael couldn’t believe his biological grandfather also played hurling, and won an all Ireland at that. Michael himself was offered a place on the Dublin team but it interfered with the type of lifestyle he wanted. 

Michael was a twenty seven year old man who had all his ducks in a row. He picked up the last picture he had with his grandmother and stood it up against the stack of letters…..

Nanny, I need some advice. You see this girl? You met her a few times, her name is Kayleigh. She’s a big fan of you! Anyway, I need to tell someone and I think its fitting for you to be the first person to hear…..she’s pregnant! Isn’t that great? And not only that, we’ve put a deposit down on a nice house and plan to go ring shopping next Saturday. I love you nan, and even though you’ve passed, I’m always going to tell you my juiciest bits of gossip first.

Michael kissed the photograph and placed it in its rightful bundle before calling it a night. He descended the ladder and, using the rickety stool again, closed the hatch. He was intrigued to see that a few family members had already claimed their boxes. Michael himself was very curious as to what was in his. As he returned the stool to the back bedroom once again, grabbing his box as he went. He was surprised at how light it was. He gently closed the bedroom door and used his trusty yellow handled box cutter to uncover the treasures inside.

Once the dust storm from the brown box resolved itself, and two puffs of an inhaler later, he tipped the box over onto the paisley duvet cover of the spare bed. When he saw what his grandmother left him he clutched his chest and took a third puff of the inhaler. She had left him a small box and three brown envelopes. Michael looked from the bed to the box and back again. He was flabbergasted at the size of the box in comparison to what was in it. 

The first thing Michael did was open the ring box. A yellow gold band ring with, what was to him, a huge diamond in the middle and two smaller diamonds on either side was hidden inside. He basked in the beauty of the ring. It was magnificent. He sat on the creaky bed, its springs broken here and there, and clapped a hand on his mouth. He was touched. He looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes as a single tear trickled down his cheek. ‘How did you know?’ He asked, addressing his nanny. 

When he pulled himself together he proceeded to open each and every envelope carefully. He didn’t want to rush the experience. 

Envelope 1: A check for €250,000. 

Michael couldn’t believe his eyes. He had never seen any bit of paper with that many zero’s before. He felt a bubbling in his stomach…he was touched. He was trying his hardest not to cry and even though he wasn't, there was water dribbling down his face. 

Envelope 2: Deeds to a plot of land.

He felt his stomach explode and acknowledged that he was actually crying for the first time since he saw the first sonogram of his baby.

Envelope 3: A letter scrawled in his nanny’s scribble.

The letter was 23 pages long. It answered all of the questions he found himself asking in the attic. He was convinced that she was listening to him and wrote the letter as he was upstairs. It told him everything he wanted to know about Charlie and the reasons for the envelopes. After he read it all, he nodded his head, and put the letter in his back pocket. He gathered the contents of his box and, although it was bitter sweet, he wiped his eyes and ascended down the stairs, locking up before he got in his black Honda Civic and cried at the wheel. After twenty minutes passed and his tears subsided, he drove home to Kayleigh.