Sarah was in the kitchen cleaning dishes when she heard a faint knocking sound. She turned off the faucet and listened.
There it was again. Two gentle knocks on the front door.
Sarah’s thirteen-year-old daughter Ava said, “I’ll get it,” as she ran from her bedroom.
“Wait for me, honey,” Sarah said, but Ava already opened the door. Ava seldom listened, often lost in her world of books.
Sarah joined Ava at the front door. Outside, an elderly woman dressed in impeccable attire smiled at them both.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you,” the woman said. “I knocked instead of ringing the bell. Bells are so startling. My name is Francis Blum. I used to live here when I was a young girl.”
It was an old house. When Sarah and her husband bought it, they spent a good deal of money on repairs and upgrades.
“Hello Francis, my name is Sarah and this is my daughter, Ava.” Francis smiled and shook hands with them.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Francis said. “Again, I’m sorry to bother you. I was hoping you’d take pity on an old woman and do me a favor?”
“Of course, Francis, how can we help?” Sarah said.
“When I was a girl my father was killed in an automobile accident. It was a difficult time. My mother couldn’t afford to stay here, and she quickly sold the house and moved us closer to relatives.” Francis furrowed her brow slightly as she spoke.
“It was a tough time. I had to say goodbye to all my friends at school, pack my things, and move across the country. It all happened so fast,” Francis said. “But I’ve moved back, now.”
“I’m sorry, that must have been difficult,” Sarah said. “Do you want to come inside? I’m sure it looks different now, but you’re welcome to take it all in. Maybe revisit some memories?”
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. ― Anonymous, The Holy Bible: King James Version
“That’s so kind of you, dear,” Francis said. “But what I’d really like to do is find the lockbox.”
“The lockbox?” Ava said.
“Yes, darling, the lockbox. I hid it before we moved. I wanted to leave a part of me behind, in case my Dad’s spirit came back to the house, and he was lonely. Little girls can be silly that way.”
Sarah and Ava led Francis into the house.
“Oh, everything is so lovely. I remember the rooms, but it looked nothing like it does now,” Francis said.
“This is my room,” Ava said.
“Well, my dear, this is where we need to go.” And with that, Francis strolled over to the closet, and slowly knelt.
Francis slid open the closet door and asked Ava if she would mind removing all the shoes from the floor. “You see, we need to pull back the carpet if that’s alright?”
Curious, Sarah knelt beside her daughter, and the two of them moved the shoes and peeled back the carpet, revealing the floorboards.
And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. ― Roald Dahl
“You see the seam there,” Francis said. “If you slip your fingers between those two boards, you can lift them.”
Sarah wedged her fingers between the two boards, and sure enough, she was able to lift them. The space below was dark, and little dust particles floated about as if released from a long slumber.
“Here Mom,” Ava said, as she used the flashlight from her smartphone.
And there, nestled like a coffin in the dark and dust, was a metal lockbox. It was wedged snugly, but with a little effort, Sarah was able to free it and placed it on the floor next to Francis.
Francis began to weep.
“I’m sorry, you two have been so kind. And now you have an old woman blubbering in your home,” Francis said as Sarah handed her a tissue.
“Don’t be silly, I’m sure it’s difficult to revisit the past,” Sarah said.
“My father was such a good man. He didn’t deserve to die young, and so senselessly. I wrote a lot about it, in my diary. And I wrote letters to him. I hid it all away in the lockbox. And I left it here, for my father. For his spirit. So he’d know how much I loved him. I didn’t want to leave him behind.”
Francis wiped her eyes.
Who else but me is ever going to read these letters? ― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Sarah glanced down at the lockbox, noticing that it was unsecured.
“I found the lockbox by the creek,” Francis said. “The clasp was broken, but I thought it would be a good place to keep my diary safe. And then I found the floor space in my closet.”
Sarah held the lid to the lockbox, looked at Francis, and said, “May I?”
Francis nodded yes, and Sarah opened the box. She looked inside and then glanced back at Francis.
“So what all did you keep in the lockbox?” Sarah asked.
“Just my diary.”
“Well, that’s strange,” Sarah said.
“Why is that?” Francis looked perplexed.
Sarah reached into the lockbox and pulled out a girl’s pink diary. She handed it to Francis, whose wrinkled hands held it tenderly like a baby.
And then Sarah reached back into the lockbox and retrieved a leather journal with the monogrammed letters RJB.
“Oh my God,” Francis said. “That’s my father’s old journal!”
Sarah and Ava sat quietly as Francis flipped through her diary, and then turned her attention to her father’s journal.
Photo by John P. Weiss
“How on earth did his journal end up here?” Francis said. She ran her fingers over the monogrammed letters. “His name was Robert James Blum. He was a journalist for the county paper. He inspired my love of reading and writing.”
“I love to write, too,” Ava said. “English is my favorite subject in school.”
“That’s wonderful, dear. Keep at it, and maybe someday, you can become a novelist like me.” Francis smiled at Ava.
Suddenly Sarah made the connection.
She thought the name Blum sounded familiar. Specifically, F. Blum, the renowned novelist, and poet. She was nearly as famous as Margaret Atwood.
“Oh my, you’re F. Blum! The author,” Sarah blurted out.
“That’s me. Publishers were biased against lady writers when I started out. That’s why I use my first initial,” Francis said.
Francis began flipping through her diary. “There’s so much here I’ve forgotten. How I felt back then. My hopes. Dreams. Fears. And so much I remember. The books I read. My ambitions. Notes on writing. Plans for the future.”
And then Francis flipped open her father’s leather journal. All of the entries began with “Dear Francis.”
“I had no idea he kept a journal for me. My mother must have found my lockbox and left the journal for me after Dad died. And with all the stress of moving, and then later on her illness, she probably didn’t know I left the lockbox behind… for Dad.” Francis took a deep breath and exhaled.
“I’m so happy for you,” Sarah said.
“Me too,” Ava said with a smile.
Francis flipped a few more pages in her father’s journal. “My goodness, so much wisdom and advice he left me. About books. Writing. What it means to be a good person. This journal is like a masterclass in writing and life. I wish I’d found this years ago!”
“Well, even without his advice, you’ve done well for yourself. You became an amazing writer,” Sarah said.
“Thank you, dear, you’re so kind. But I’ve taken enough of your time. When your husband comes home, he’s going to wonder who this old, crying woman is in your house.”
“Oh Francis, I’m afraid we lost my husband three years ago. Cancer,” Sarah said, as she glanced at Ava.
“You would have loved my Dad,” Ava said. “He was a police officer, and super funny. And he used to read to me every night. He always told me to dream big.”
To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase ‘terrible beauty.’ Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it’s a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else’s body. — Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir
Francis leaned over and hugged Ava, holding her for a long time. “Oh my dear, I’m afraid life has been cruel to both of us. But thank God we both had fathers who loved us so completely.”
And now Sarah was the one tearing up.
It had been an extraordinary afternoon, and Sarah still couldn’t believe that the author F. Blum’s childhood diary, and her father’s journal, were hidden away in the floorboards of Ava’s bedroom.
Sarah and Ava hugged Francis one more time and then said their goodbyes.
As the days passed, Ava turned to her reading and writing with great gusto, no doubt inspired by her encounter with the novelist F. Blum. And she started to keep her own diary, which she stowed in the lockbox that Francis graciously left for her.
At the end of the week, on a lovely Sunday afternoon, Sarah and Ava took a stroll in the park. Much to their surprise, they spotted Francis sitting on a park bench. And in her hands were both her diary and her father’s journal.
“Well hello again,” Sarah said.
“Oh my, how serendipitous!” Francis exclaimed.
“That means a happy discovery,” Ava offered.
“Exactly, Ava. Come sit next to me, I’ve been thinking about you. How is your writing coming along?” Francis slid over to make room on the park bench.
“I’ve been reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It’s all about the future, and books being outlawed,” Ava said.
“Oh, that’s a good book,” Francis said, adding, “There’s a line in the book about friendship I never forgot: ‘We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.’”
Ava smiled, and Francis held up her old diary and her father’s journal.
“Ava, I spent this week reading my diary and my Dad’s journal. They brought back so many wonderful things forgotten and things remembered. But most of all, they made me smile, and inspired me to write more books.”
And then Francis handed the diary and journal to Ava.
“Ava, darling, I want you to have these. I am an old woman who lost her Daddy, but somehow I found the words and was able to become a writer. So I don’t need these anymore. You are a young girl who also lost her Daddy, and you are on your way to becoming a writer. And I think you could use these, to help you along your way.” Francis smiled at Ava and Sarah.
“Oh Francis, that’s so generous and kind of you, but we can’t possibly accept these. They’re so special and personal to you,” Sarah said.
“Thank you, Sarah, but I really must insist. I feel like, strangely, my father’s spirit did come back. He found me. His journal found me. I only wish I discovered it years ago. But I’ve read it now, and maybe my father’s wisdom, and my youthful diary notes, can help Ava. We novelists have to stick together!”
Ava held the diary and journal in her hands, and looked intently at her mother. Ava’s eyes were gently pleading.
“Well thank you, Francis. You’re so very kind. Ava can keep them both in the lockbox, and you’re welcome to visit them, and us, anytime,” Sarah said.
“Thank you, thank you so much! I’ll take really good care of them!” Ava said excitedly.
“What’s buried in the past can sometimes change the future,” Francis said, as the three of them leaned in for an embrace.
And then Francis held Ava’s shoulders and said, “Go change the future, Ava! Go write some books! Make your father, mother, and me proud!”
Before you go
I’m John P. Weiss. I write elegant stories and essays about life. Check out my popular Saturday Letters here.
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This post was previously published on Medium.com.
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