Chapter 13
Wednesday morning, the day before her mother’s funeral, Jo woke up early. She showered and dressed, then went out into the yard to absorb the beauty around her. Alex was waking as she left, so she didn’t think there would be much time alone. As much as she loved Alex, and appreciated her, she realized she hadn’t had any time alone other than the few minutes the previous morning. Jo thought that maybe she should spend some more time thinking about her mother today, so that tomorrow wouldn’t be so hard. She remembered there were photos – the ones she had happened to grab on the way to the hospital. They were still in Alex’s car, she was sure. Oh, and the treasure box. There were some in there. Jo headed back into the house to see if she could get those items from Alex’s car. She met Alex coming out of the bathroom.
“Alex, I need to spend some time with my mom today. It’s something I need to do. Can I get the pictures and my box out of your car?”
“Sure, let me throw some clothes on. I’ll be right out.”
Jo went into the kitchen and helped herself to a quick breakfast. Alex appeared shortly, and they went out to her car. She opened the trunk, revealing the things they had recovered from the fire.
“Oh, my clothes, I forgot about them. I should do some laundry today; I might have to wash them more than once to get the smell out.” Jo picked up the clothing, and underneath it she saw the treasure box that had her pictures and the diamond jewelry set her mother had given her. Next to it was the small round tin box that Alex had discovered in the debris from what had been Jo’s mother’s bedroom.
“Oh, we never found out what was in this tin, yet did we?” She picked up the badly charred box and shook it. Yes, there was definitely something inside. “I wonder if your dad could get it open.”
“He’s gone to work, but we can try some of his tools. Come on.” Alex led Jo to a workshop behind the garage where there was a large assortment of tools. The two of them pried on the container, used a screwdriver on it, then tried to separate it by each of them holding half and pulling away. Nothing was accomplished by the exertion other than it made Alex fly back a few feet and land on her tailbone.
“This isn’t working, Jo.” Alex looked around for something else and picked up a can of some kind of liquid spray. “Hey, wait. This stuff helps release rust. Let’s spray it on, see if it will loosen the top from the bottom.”
Jo held and spun the round container while Alex liberally sprayed the degreaser all around the seam. They let it soak in for a few minutes, and then started prying on it again. This time, it budged. It was a small victory, but it got both girls excited.
“Spray some more, Alex. Maybe we will get it this time.” So they repeated the earlier application, and waited five minutes this time. Then Alex had an idea.
“Here, Jo, put the bottom part of the canister in a vice, like this,” She took the canister and carefully screwed a table vise onto it so it wouldn’t budge. “Now you and I can both pry on each side, at the same time. Let’s try it.”
They each took a thin flat blade screwdriver and positioned themselves equally across the canister. Unable to get a grip into the lip of the cover, Jo decided to place the flat edge against it, and used a hammer to try to loosen the top. Alex caught on to what she was doing, and followed her lead. The lid loosened a little with each blow, and finally, after working at it for almost ten minutes, the cover popped off and fell onto the floor with a loud clang. Jo and Alex looked inside and saw a folded sheet of paper, and a set of keys, small ones.
“Those look like the Post Office Box keys my parents have for their business mail.” Alex commented.
“They are the same size as the keys for the filing cabinet in the Attendance Office at school, too. They could be anything.” Jo reached in, picked up the paper and opened it carefully. It was a handwritten note, probably to her mother from her father. “Lin, Keep these for me until I get back. Love, Joe.” Jo read the missive aloud. “I wonder what they go to.”
Jo picked up the two keys that were both on one small ring, and examined them. She found a small number engraved on the side of each. One number read 102 and the other key had 103 engraved on it. Whatever they open, it is most likely two things close to each other, Jo surmised. “Well, if these are from my dad, then they are from at least eighteen years ago. There’s no telling what they go to, or where. It could be connected to his business in New York. Maybe a P.O. Box there. It would have been closed long ago for lack of payment.”
“It’s impossible to guess what they go to, Jo. Why don’t you put the keys and note in your treasure box, and we can throw away the canister. Its pretty beat up. I would hate to have to try to open it again.”
Jo agreed with Alex, and they gathered the rest of the things from the car, including all the photos and other papers Jo had mistakenly, though luckily, taken with her to the hospital that fateful night. Jo wiped down her treasure box with a damp cloth, getting most of the soot and char off of it before taking it into the house.
“Alex, I was wondering if you would mind if I had some time alone today,” Jo began, and Alex opened her mouth to protest. Jo stopped her and tried to explain her feelings. “Alex, I really need some time to grieve. I need to think through the last two days. I haven’t been alone or unoccupied for more than a few minutes since the accident. I need to say good-bye to my mother today, before the funeral tomorrow. I think it’s important for me to be okay by tomorrow, for myself. I have a deep feeling in my gut that I need to do this today, and not wait.”
“Jo, I know you need to grieve, but that takes time. There will be lots of time. I’m not comfortable with leaving you alone so soon. Besides, some psycho is trying to kill you, remember?”
“The psycho is dead, Alex, and there was no indication that anyone else is coming. Regardless, that man can’t hurt me anymore, and I need to do this, Alex. It’s important. I’ve been feeling lost, and I need to find myself again. I need some time today.” Alex was frowning, so Jo suggested a compromise. “How about this: I spend some time with my mom today, and I promise to hang on to you and Charlie all day tomorrow, and not leave your sight. You can even go to the bathroom with me if you want!” Jo smiled.
Alex smiled back. She was unsure of Jo’s plan, but realized Jo was serious about taking this time. “All right, Jo, but you take your cell phone with you if you leave the house, and you call me the moment you need me.”
“Yes, Mother,” Jo answered sarcastically. “Oh, Alex, can I borrow a small plastic container? I want to put the pictures in it to take with me when I go. I don’t want to lug around the metal box.”
Alex went and found a suitable container, then loaned Jo a backpack to put it in, so that it wasn’t obvious she was carrying a plastic box. “Do you need a lift to someplace?” Alex asked as Jo got up to leave.
“No, I think I want to walk. I’m not even sure where I’m going yet, but I know I need to go.” Jo gave Alex a hug, grabbed her cell phone, which she had remembered to charge the night before, and left the house. She headed down the sidewalk toward town. She really didn’t know where she was going, but wanted to be on her way. Wherever she ended up was fine.
She had been walking for just a few minutes when a city bus pulled up right beside her. She glanced up and realized she was at a corner where the bus stopped. The bus driver assumed she was wanting on, so had stopped for her. She looked at the bus, and impulsively, boarded it. Why not? She said to herself. After plunking the correct amount of coins from her purse into the toll box, she found a seat with a window.
The unfamiliar streets and houses flew by as the bus headed into the business district. She had visited Alex many times before, or course, but hadn’t paid much attention to the residential area her friend called home. The bus wended its way through several business districts and residential districts. She watched as people got off and on. She saw families board together, and saw them separate at different stops. Life went on for everyone around her. Could life go on for herself as well, she wondered?
The bus pulled up to a large park. There were picnic tables, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, and a playground for the small children to play in. Jo decided to get off. She didn’t stop to wonder why, she just felt like it.
Jo crossed a large lawn to sit under a gigantic oak tree that sprawled to the sky. It was imposing, but it was beautiful. She sat against the trunk of the tree and opened up the backpack. Unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears, she wept as she saw the photos of her mother in various stages of Jo’s life. She studied the beautiful bride in the wedding photo. Her mother was so deliriously happy. It would have been wonderful to know her father, Jo thought, just because her mother loved him so much. She browsed through all the photos, studying them through her tears.
“Oh, Mom, I don’t know how I can keep going. I’m not sure I want to, Mom. Why did you have to leave me all alone?” These were the hard questions she asked of the woman in the pictures.
She looked at the last of them, and put them away. Her tears had dried up. She thought over the past few days and the trials she had faced. She wondered if life was always going to be so hard. She wondered if she was strong enough to face it if it was.
She lay back on the grass and looked up at the tree, using the backpack as a pillow. She noticed that the oak tree had dozens of branches. Many of them were deformed, twisted, curled, and ugly. Countless numbers of smaller branches led off from the larger, bent shapes. Surprisingly, many of the smaller branches were straight. Not perfect by any means, but more uniform than their larger contributors. As she took in the whole picture, a wonderful concept occurred to her. This oak tree was life. You start out with, hopefully, a strong, firm foundation. You grow straight and tall for a while, setting your roots, your character. Soon branches form. Those are experiences in your life, she theorized. Sometimes the experiences you go through are ugly, as the tree clearly showed. Sometimes they left scars. Yet even the ugly branches made the tree stronger. Then smaller, steady branches forming off of the disfigured larger ones could be the lessons learned from the ugly experience you had. It was wisdom, she decided, and those small branches were the ones that had the leaves on them. The leaves represent your spirit – your character; how you relate to others. The more wisdom you gain from the hard lessons, the more outward integrity you show to people around you, she concluded.
Jo jumped up off the ground and ran a ways from the tree, then turned around and looked back. Yes! It was just as she thought. If you look at the tree as a whole, as one big tree, you do not see the large ugly twisted branches, or the smaller shooters. You only see the beautiful green leaves. “Every trial I go through in my life shows in my character, and it’s up to me to decide what the trial shows. If I curl up and cry in the corner, my leaves whither – then all anyone would see would be my large, ugly branches.” She rationalized aloud. Every experience was a lesson, and an opportunity to grow leaves, or choose to allow herself to wither away. More than anything, Jo was positive that her mother would want these trials to help her develop wonderful character, but it was up to her to make that happen. She could not let grief or depression take hold. She could not allow her spirit to wither under the weight of her sadness.
This was what she had needed today. Jo smiled at the tree. “Thank you for showing me that all this was necessary,” she shouted to the tree. Jo laughed. She ran up and hugged the tree. “Thank you, Mom, for helping me become a person with strong character. I won’t let you down.”
Jo wiped the last tears from her eyes, and turned from the tree, walking to the bus stop. She felt good; lighter than she had in days. She felt as if a burden had lifted from her shoulders. Her mother would be proud, she knew. Jo recognized the fact that she was not done grieving. It would probably be years before she would stop missing her mother’s companionship, but this was a huge step. After Jo’s chat with her mother and seeing her life in the tree, Jo understood that she was a strong person, and would be just fine.
The bus pulled up at the corner as she neared it. She boarded it, again putting coins in, and found a seat. There were many more on it this time, so she sat with a child near the back. The little boy seemed full of questions, and Jo entertained him for his grateful mother until they got off several stops later. Once alone, she moved over to the window to watch.
Jo had no idea which bus went where, since she had never ridden on the city bus before. However she was amazed to realize that the route they were on had become familiar to her. They were heading the direction of the mobile home park. She knew that the bus didn’t go as far as her house, and decided to find out where the cut-off was. At the next stop, she quickly moved up to the driver and asked, “How far does the bus go before you turn around and head back?”
“Just another two blocks, miss,” was the reply.
Two blocks would put her about two miles from the mobile home park. Jo smiled and decided to go for it. She would say good-bye to the old home once more.
The bus stopped, and Jo got off and looked around. There was a small grocery store, a gas station with a convenience store on another corner, and a strip of various businesses off to the side. Jo and her mother had come here many times for one or two items missing from the house that her mother had needed to fix dinner. It was the closest store to their home. They had often come here for bread and milk, too.
It was a bit after noon by this time, so Jo went into a small café next to a Laundromat that had seen many years of service. She ordered a cup of soup and a half sandwich, and a root beer. Root beer wasn’t her favorite drink, but Charlie loved it, so she had learned to like it as well. She ate hungrily once her food was served, then left a tip on the table on her way out the door.
The walk was pleasant. It was warm out, but not hot. There was a wide shoulder on the side of the road, so she didn’t have to fear the passing cars. They mostly ignored her. She would have been frightened if she had seen a black car with darkly tinted windows, but she was positive that would never happen again.
About a half-hour into her walk, she was starting to tire. She was sure she was over half way to the mobile home park since she recognized everything she passed. It wouldn’t be much farther.
Just about then, a large older model luxury car pulled off the road slowly, right in front of her. She was a little leery of the man, considering what she had been through, but the car seemed vaguely familiar. Then she realized who it was when a man wearing a floppy straw hat got out of the car.
“Hello, miss. Are you heading to the park?”
“Yes, I decided to say goodbye to the old trailer. I doubt I will come this way much more, and wanted to see it one last time.”
“Well, you know it’s gone, right? Some company came and cleaned it up, and hauled the whole thing away. I watched them myself.” Jo had reached the vehicle by this time, and stopped to talk to the gentleman.
“I wasn’t sure when they were going to clear it out, but that’s probably even better. I can see our driveway and our bushes and things. I just wanted to see it one last time.”
“Can I give you a lift? I was just on the way home myself.”
Jo considered the man’s kind proposal. She felt he was most likely harmless, but her training from babyhood made her cautious about accepting his offer. He saw her hesitate, and hastened to assure her that his intentions were pure.
“I don’t want to alarm you, Miss Becker. Never mind, forget I asked. Have a nice walk, now, and stay clear of the road,” he advised and got back in his car.
“Wait!” Jo called.
“Yes?” the man left his vehicle again and turned to face her, waiting.
“I would like a ride home – well to the mobile home park, if you don’t mind,” she smiled as she walked towards the car. The man smiled back, came around the vehicle and opened the door for her. She was surprised by this small gesture. She had never had a man open the door for her. “Thank you very much, sir.”
“You said you were saying goodbye to the place. Are you planning on going somewhere?” the man asked as he got back into the vehicle.
“No, I don’t think so. I will begin looking for a job next week. I can’t live off my friend Alex and her family forever, even though I’m sure that’s what Alex wants for me right now,” Jo grinned as she replied.
“No college for you?”
“I can’t afford it.” Jo looked up at the man, her face stark and honest. “I couldn’t have afforded it even if my mom hadn’t died or even if the house hadn’t burnt down. There was just no money for anything like that.”
The man looked at Jo, startled. “You didn’t have money for things you needed at home?” He was truly shocked by her response.
“We always had the necessary things. Mom was a careful shopper, and we ate a lot of hamburger and chicken,” she laughed. “It was not easy for her, being a single working mom all those years, but I’m so proud of her for who she was. And I hope I can be half as strong a woman as my mom was.” Jo declared fiercely.
“Your dad died when you were little?” the man asked. Jo nodded. “That’s too bad.” Roberts wanted more information, but now was not the time, and he knew that. He pulled into the mobile home park just then, and rounded the corner toward Jo’s former residence.
Jo looked ahead at the place she grew up. The crew she had hired had truly been there and done their job. No frame, no siding, even the ashes were all gone. The old appliances had been taken as well. All that was left was the roses her mother had carefully planted and cared for throughout the years, and a few other bushes and plants scattered around. The place where the mobile home had sat was completely bare.
Jo got out of the vehicle once it stopped at her driveway. She thanked the man, and he continued to his door a few yards away. She lovingly caressed the rosebush closest to where the front door used to be. She had bought that one for Mother’s Day one year, as a surprise for her mother. Shopping for her mother for birthdays and things had been so hard, since there was no other parent to take her. This one year, she was determined to surprise her mother, so had begged Kendra to take her out one day. That’s when Jo picked out the deep red rose bush. She remembered clearly the look her mother gave her once the gift was revealed. It was the very first surprise her mother had ever gotten. Jo relived the precious look her mother bestowed upon her as she said, “This is the nicest thing anyone has every given me.” Jo realized years later that it wasn’t the rose bush that her mother had treasured, but the time and effort that Jo had given to getting it for her.
Roberts walked up beside her, still wearing the floppy hat. “It’s all cleaned up nice, now. The company did a good job.”
“Yeah, they did.” She really was pleased with herself. She had done something all on her own, and the company she picked did the job as promised. She had accomplished something as an adult. It was a good feeling.
Jo sensed the man next to her wanted to say something, but was hesitating. He kept shifting his weight and opening his mouth as if to speak, but closing it before he said something. Finally, he stopped stalling.
“Listen, Miss Becker, I will be attending the services tomorrow for your mother. I know we didn’t really know each other, but I could tell she was the type of person I would have liked to have known.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. -” Jo paused. She had no idea what to call the man, and looked at him for an answer.
“Roberts,” he responded quickly.
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Roberts, but really unnecessary. I do appreciate your evaluation of my mother, though.” Jo turned from the empty lot as if to leave. Roberts started again.
“Miss Becker, what I mean is, since you implied that you would be looking for a job soon, I would like to speak with you in that regards. You see, some friends of mine own a company that is looking for bright young women like yourself. If you would let me tell you about it tomorrow after the service, I would love to do that.”
“But I have no qualifications for a job in business,” Jo protested.
“Yes you do, Miss Becker. You are a sensible young woman of strong character, and I can tell from our short conversation that you are intelligent. You are just the person this company needs, I guarantee that. Will you let me talk with you tomorrow?” To Jo it seemed that the man was almost desperate to speak with her about this job. She wondered what his offer meant to her. Was it a real offer? Did he know someone who needed a receptionist or something that didn’t require much experience? She studied the man for a moment. Beyond the floppy straw hat that humanized him, he was wearing khaki dress shorts and a casual business type shirt. Having just had a shopping experience with Charlie the day before, she knew that his attire, though casual, was costly. He was for real, she decided.
“All right, I’m sure that there will be something with all of my friends immediately afterwards, but later in the evening, I will be free to speak with you about a job. I can tell you when and where at the service tomorrow, if that is okay. And thank you for your interest, Mr. Roberts.” Jo shook the hand he offered to her, she then turned to head to the mobile home park office. She wanted to make sure there was nothing she needed to do to move out permanently.
“Miss Becker, do you need a ride to your temporary home? I believe you said you were staying with friends.”
Jo turned around for a moment, “No, thank you. I need to talk to the park manager, and then I’m going to call Alex to come get me. I’m sure she’s worried sick by now. She loves to mother me,” Jo smiled when she considered Alex’s care of her. She was grateful to have such good friends.
“Okay, take care, Miss Becker, and I will see you tomorrow at two.” Roberts turned and headed back to his rented trailer.
<