Legacy

Desiree couldn’t remember Oba’s hands anymore. It’d been too long since she held them, and the memory of their shape and weight was beginning to fade from her mind. In an effort to combat the emptiness that washed over her, she grasped her right hand and cradled it gently. Closing her eyes to savor the touch, she thought—these are Oba’s hands, and she uttered the words beneath the flickering streetlight near Ray’s Café.

On rainy mornings, she’d walk into the old neighborhood diner and imagine she was waiting for Oba. She’d sit down in their favorite booth and muse about the breakfast they would order—usually, the early bird special of three eggs over easy, turkey bacon, and home fries cooked crispy with onions. She’d get that and Oba would get pancakes and Desiree would tell her she would be better off eating cupcakes. They’d laugh and fight over who could have dessert first and sometimes Oba would say with a quiet melancholy “April loves blueberry pancakes,” and sometimes she’d cry, and Desiree would kiss her cheek softly and tell her it was alright.

Today is a hard day, she thought. The coffee tasted bitter in her mouth. A furious February wind blew the front door of the diner shut and it startled her but she did not spill her coffee. She held the cup steady as she would often hold Oba after a loud noise would make her shiver with fear. The memory of Oba’s small frame curled up against her chest sent a pang straight through Desiree’s heart. Today is a very hard day.

She received the letter from the executor a week prior, and had been building up the confidence to go to Oba’s place and gather up her things. It’d been a month since the funeral and it didn’t seem real to Desiree yet, as though the contents of the letter were a kind of fiction; a story that didn’t belong to her. In the letter was a combination to a safe, and instructions on how to clear out the apartment and claim the items. The details of it all were so overwhelming, but she tried to take it in stride. As the sole beneficiary, Desiree would have to get past the discomfort of stepping into Oba’s world again without Oba.

The car ride to the apartment was short and uneventful. The gloominess of the day reflected the grayness of Desiree’s demeanor and there was a light rain that pattered the windshield. Since she’d gotten up that morning, she’d felt as though she were drowning. The radio played only static.

Before she knew it, she was at the front door. She inserted the key into the lock, the door swung open and suddenly— there was Oba. Her scent. Her shoes. Her plant in the corner now dead, as she was. Everything tidied, orderly, in its place, save for a layer of dust and a light smell of rot from the fridge, it was all as it had been. Desiree could not help herself, “Honey, I’m here!” her voice echoed in the darkness. She half expected Oba to respond, but the ghosts were silent.

…

Although Oba had left everything to her, it was not much at all. Her late husband had gambled much of their savings away and Oba had to sell their house to pay off his debts. Despite these hardships, she managed to make a place for herself. She called it “her corner of the world,” and it was most certainly a corner. A 550 sq. ft , rented one bedroom in a shady part of town.

“Don’t you feel unsafe?” Desiree often asked her.

“Oh! Who’s going to bother an old woman?” Oba would reply jokingly.

Desiree cracked a smile. It was true. No one messed with Oba, but Desiree supposed that it was because she could make herself virtually invisible. Light-footed and delicate, a beautiful shadow—you had to know that she was there to really see her. After they were together a year, Desiree tried to convince her to move in with her. She had a modest house with a nice backyard. At times, Oba would stay for a few days, but she’d always return to her nest. “I just need to be in my space,” she would say. “Maybe one day,” but that day never came.

Oba’s walls were decorated with framed quilt patterns and scenes of country landscapes. Designer baskets stacked in the corner, thrifted from yard sales and second hand shops. A collection of collectables. Oba would often say that, in her life before with her husband, he never let her decorate the way that she wanted. So, this small apartment was in many ways her freedom—a world away from the violence and aggression she had known before.

As Desiree moved towards the living room, she saw the table of family photographs almost immediately and her heart sank. From what she understood, Oba’s daughter April never forgave her mother for threatening to divorce her father before his death. Apparently, there was a violent fight that rocked the entire household. While it may have been true that he was never a good husband, he had tried to be a good father—Oba did admit that—but that was all April seemed to remember. His suicide created a large crack in their relationship, as April always blamed her mother for driving him to it. In her anger for Oba’s supposed abandonment of her father, she decided to abandon her. When April moved in with her boyfriend a few years ago, she stopped calling Oba. She removed herself from Oba’s life completely, and this, Desiree understood, was the constant agony Oba endured. One Christmas past, while staring at the picture of April from her high school graduation, the same one Desiree stared at now, Oba asked “But what is my legacy, Des? Is it only pain that I leave behind?”

…

Desiree made her way towards the bedroom. She recalled seeing a safe in the closet. The combination for the lock was 04-02-95-April’s birthday.

Not exactly a riddle, honey, Desiree smiled and swung the door open. Her jaw dropped when she saw the contents.

Two large bundles of hundreds neatly piled in a corner and next to it, a tattered black notebook. She recognized it immediately as Oba’s journal. Thinking back, Desiree could visualize this little book making an appearance every once in a while throughout their time together. She recounted fuzzy memories of Oba writing something right before one of their dates at Ray’s, or waking with the sun to discover her scribbling near the window. But she’d never seen it so plain and vulnerable as it was now. With trepidation, she reached for it.

The cover of the notebook was tattered from excessive use. Some of the smooth leather flaked off onto her fingers and Desiree was careful to be delicate with the pages. She couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for reading what was inside—it was like undressing Oba again for the first time. Every line was packed full of writing, as though the paper was gorging itself on words. Desperate scribbles transformed into Oba’s neat penmanship and there were portions of methodical artwork, mixed in with doodles of flowers and hearts drawn with happy faces. Everything was dated, of course. There were several mentions of her love for April and what she hoped to share with her in the future. All of it appeared dedicated to her daughter, save for a postcard with a tranquil farm scene that stuck out from the notebook like a bookmark.

“To Desiree, my love…” Tears welled in her eyes. An uncontrollable sensation of emptiness engulfed her. Oba was gone and never coming back, but how was it that she could hear her voice so clearly through her written words?

“If you’re reading this, I’m sorry that I’ve left you and I hope you can forgive me. For a little while now, I’ve sensed that my time is near. You should know that you saved whatever love I still had in me. You gave my last years a sense of meaning and inspiration and I will always love you for that.

I want to ask you for three things. They will all seem difficult, but it’s what I need as I'm too ashamed to do it myself since part of me believes she deserves to hate me.

Please tell my daughter that I’m dead. (I won’t be able to).

Please tell her that she mattered so much to me and I’m sorry she couldn’t see it.

Please give her this notebook and the money I saved next to it-it’s $20,000-residuals from the house. It’s all I can provide for her and the family..maybe all that she’ll ever let me give.

This is why I ask you to forgive me, for passing this burden to you. For not asking you in person because I’m afraid of further rejection. I know it’s horribly inconvenient, but believe me when I say, just writing this to you has helped me to let go. To be free. I don’t want to be a ghost walking the earth anymore.

Yours forever,

Oba.”

Desiree could feel the anger within her begin to boil towards April. Why couldn’t she have forgiven her before the cancer took her? It didn’t seem right that a person capable of giving so much love should be deprived of it for the last years of her life. She knew in her heart of hearts that Oba’s primary wish was for April to acknowledge her as her mother again, and it broke Desiree to come to the realization that her wish went unfulfilled before it was too late.

“I’m sorry baby,” Desiree whispered “I’m so sorry,” and she wept in the closet.

…

The weather forecast predicted rain all day, and Desiree found herself beneath the streetlight near Ray’s café once again. Much to her surprise, it only took three tries to get April on the phone. After Desiree informed April of her mother’s death, her tone shifted to one of great sadness and regret. It seemed that the years had softened her heart, if only a little too late, and when she arrived to Ray’s that gray Monday morning, her countenance was pensive and sorrowful. She hardly spoke. She let Desiree do the talking, and like touching something sacred, when her hands held the small notebook, she shook and broke into tears.

“What is it?” she managed.

“It’s your mom’s journal. I haven’t really read my way through it, but it mentions you quite a lot and how much she loved you. She wanted you to have a part of her.” April couldn’t speak.

“You have a baby girl?”

April nodded quietly, making eye contact for the first time. She looked so much like Oba then.

“Here. A gift from her grandmother.” But as April reached out for it, Desiree held on tight to the bag of money for a moment, her voice commanding and hard.

“I loved your mother very much. In many ways, she saved me as she believed I saved her. Look, I don’t know your life or the resentments you might still harbor towards Oba, but I’ll say this, …don’t you dare squander her love. Treasure it. There is a whole beautiful life in that small book.”

She released her grip, and let April grab hold of the bag. The girl didn’t dare open it. And Desiree didn’t want to stick around for the big reveal. She stood up from the table quickly, and wiped the tears away from her eyes. She’d done what she needed to do.

“Good luck with everything,” she said before leaving. She didn’t look back.

Outside, the rain had subsided. The day became clear, and as she walked on, she could feel a pressure in her palm as though someone were holding her hand.