Papa's Ledger That Went to the Dogs

The day's weather matched her somber mood with a sturdy fog. When she walked in the house it welcomed her and her mood.

Amelia loved this house. A bungalow built in the 20's by some morose playwright that had an eye for the peculiar.

"Are you up to this job Ammie?"

She quickly pulled back from her deep thoughts to the hot mug Gram put in her hand.

"Yah, but you know I don't want to do this," as she sipped the stiff brew.

Amelia noticed for the first time how sad and tired her grandmother looked even though it had been two years since Papa’s unexpected death.

They both walked towards the little office that greeted guests to the right as they came through the front door. Papa would always be behind the massive desk that he pilfered from a bank renovation years before they moved there. The desk took up almost every inch of the office, but he liked it that way. His computer, stacks of papers, and little black books had plenty of room to disperse and multiply. Now, they had to somehow sort through and assemble this life, choosing what to throw away and keep.

"I don't even know where to start." Amelia leaned on the desk feeling anxious about putting his life in boxes.

"How about you take the right side of the desk and I take the left?" Gram seemed to have more gumption than she did, which really was not fair, so she perked up to put more energy in the process for Gram's sake.

The first drawer Amelia tackled was full of office gadgetry. Pens, pencils, fancy clips, markers, junk that could be tossed, but fun to play with as a kid or for someone that was making a bid at adulting.

The second drawer contained papers that did not look important and a stack of checkbooks. There was also a small box in the back of the drawer that contained 12 little black books with the handy elastic band and ribbon page marker, Papa always had one in his pocket. When Amelia was little, she always thought they reminded her of diaries that you would use a fountain pen to complete. He was always jotting something down in them with his stubby pencil.

She reached for the box and decided to peek through one of the black books that had the most recent date on the cover. This would have been used the last couple of months before Papa died. Amelia sat in his chair, put her feet up on the massive desk and began reading. She felt weird, like she was looking over his shoulder as he wrote, it felt so personal, as if she were betraying his trust and forging through his most private thoughts---but she read anyway.

9/15/16- Gwen's birthday. Flowers? Reservations?

9/26/16- Crypto class. Weird, bought 5.

9/28/16- Plant daff/tulips Sun.

Amelia kept reading, seemed to be little snippets of his days, why he did not put this stuff on his phone she had no clue. Amelia shoved the little black book into her pocket, she needed to look busy.

"I miss seeing him sitting here behind this crazy desk. He loved this room." Amelia gazed around at the incredibly masculine decor and shelves of books. "What are you going to do with all of these books?"

Gram looked around the room and ran her hand along the side of the desk. "I guess donate them, but the desk stays, it is the closest thing I have to him walking around this house, it's just so him."

She was right. Papa was larger than life, classic looks, imposing, but inviting once you knew how to navigate around his sharp edges. He stowed a wicked sense of humor and spoke fluent sarcasm. She continued to hope that these characteristics had traveled from his DNA to her writing.

They spent the next few hours in silence sorting, boxing, and dumping. The light in the room faded and the rich browns of the wood paneling absorbed a warmth and invitation to read. They had started on boxing the books but were often sidetracked by an unusual title or leatherbound classic.

"He had such eclectic tastes in books, I had no idea." Amelia muttered as she reviewed a leatherbound book of 18th century cartography.

"He certainly did!" Gram smiled above an oversized illustrated book of horses.

As the evening settled upon them Gram nestled into the window seat with a cup of coffee and asked Amelia, "So, what's the scoop on the writer’s session you were talking about?"

Oddly, Amelia was deep in thought on the same subject. "Oh man, would I love to go. Three months in residence at Trinity, could you even imagine?" She had thought of every conceivable way to scrape the money together and take off to the Emerald Isle.

"You said it was $10,000...geez, but it does sound fantastic. You do know I would send you if I could. And you do know my side, the O'Keffe's, are from that area, right?

"I think you have told me a few dozen times." Amelia winked at her. She changed the subject because she had dreamed of that opportunity since she had first heard about it years ago and was no closer to going.

"Gram, I will come back Saturday and, hopefully, now that we know what we are doing, we can get this done." Amelia sounded hopeful but was not that sure of their predicted progress---his books kept calling.

Once home Amelia headed straight for bed. She dropped her jeans to the floor and the little black book spilled out from her pocket. She thumbed through it and got to the ribbon bookmark. On that page there were a bunch of dollar signs scribbled around the edges. A number "605.12" was scribbled in the middle then the number"5". At the very bottom was "DOGS=LEDGER". What was all this about, it seemed so unlike her Papa's sense of orderly notation. She turned back to the beginning of the little book and again read his notes. "Crypto class" caught her eye.

"He bought five? What does that mean?"

She Googled cryptocurrency and spent the rest of the night trying to figure out what it was; how it worked. She drifted off when the sun started to yawn through her window.

It was late morning that the news caught her attention about cryptocurrency prices breaking records. She immediately froze and if she understood Papa's notes, he had five Bitcoins that were worth about a quarter of a million dollars! Gram could use that money to do so much around the house and put in her retirement.

"Gram, did Papa ever tell you he bought cryptocurrency?"

"Umm, I remember he took a class with Uncle Pat. I don't think he bought any."

"I think he did buy some, and, IF he did, you would have a pretty decent stash!"

She got on the phone with her Uncle Pat and he did confirm that they had each bought five Bitcoins. He had sold his a year ago and thought Papa had too. He explained that she needed to find something that looked like a thumb drive, called a Ledger in the crypto world. She needed to know the pin for the Ledger and would only have three tries to use the correct pin or the account would lock her out from using a pin forever. No pressure. She spent some time examining every page of his little black book to make sure she had not missed anything, she felt sure that the "DOGS=Ledger" was the pin. Now, she had to find the Ledger!

She told Gram what she was looking for. They began to sift through every item in the desk. Two hours, nothing. She went through the drawers again. She pulled out the box of little black books and skimmed through all 11 of them, nothing. She lifted the box out, nothing. She pulled out the drawer and shook everything out. Bingo! Taped to the underside was a small box that had the letter L.

"YES! Gram, this is it!" She was starting to get excited. She inserted the Ledger into the computer which asked for the pin. She double checked his entry "DOGS=Ledger".

"Ok, here we go, cross your fingers." She entered "D", his was capitalized so she copied the same, "O" she was nervous now, "G" she hesitated, "S" and then quickly hit enter.

DECLINED.

"Crap, I just used number one."

"What do you mean?"

"I have three tries to access this account, and I just blew one. Use all three and it denies access forever."

"What code are you using?" Amelia showed her Papa's notation.

"Maybe you aren't supposed to capitalize it, though it seems odd that he would."

They both sat and stared at the little black book in silence. Suddenly, Gram sat bolt upright.

"What if he is giving a hint, like use dogs' names?"

"Ok, let's sleep on it, because I don't want to screw this up. What happens if it is supposed to be lower case? How many dogs have you and Papa had? What dog names would he use?"

They both thought about the options.

The next day they were sitting nervously in front of the screen.

"What do ya think? You pick this time since I failed the first try."

"I looked again at his black book, seems like once you know what this page is about, and thank you for that my brilliant granddaughter, it's pretty straight forward. I say we go for lower case." She tried to sound confident.

"Ok, then, here we go..." She started to type.

"Wait...no go...no, hold on! Honey, this is too much freaking pressure." Big pause. "Screw it, just go!" She seemed emphatic this time.

Amelia slowly typed in "dogs" lower case. She could not seem to drag her finger to hit enter. She thought she was going to hyperventilate.

"You do it, I can't move my finger." Gram looked suddenly uncomfortable, her cheeks were pink, she paced in front of the desk. She shook her hands like she needed to loosen them up. Then she bravely walked up to the computer and pounded her finger onto the keyboard, totally missing the key.

She muttered to herself then struck the keyboard again.

They both had their eyes closed and were holding each other, frozen that way for a good 30 seconds.

DECLINED.

"What!" Both yelled at the computer at the same time. Strike two.

Amelia was immediately on the phone.

"Uncle Pat, we found the Ledger, he wrote DOGS=Ledger what are we missing? Could it be dogs' names? What could they be? We have tried dogs with both upper and lower case. Help!"

Uncle Pat spoke calmly, he could hear the near hysteria in Amelia's voice.

"Hmmm...dogs. He was quiet for a long moment. You know we had a long discussion before he died about our two favorite dogs as kids. We each had gotten a puppy, but we both wanted to name our puppy the same thing, Scooter. We had two dogs named Scooter. That is my only guess honey."

That had to be it!

"Did you hear that Gram?" She turned and saw Gram had tears running down her cheeks.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that? He loved the Scooter's. That has to be it."

Amelia very slowly entered the name SCOOTER, hesitated, and then added an "S". ENTER.

There was no breath left in the room, all eyes were closed.

"Let's look at the same time."

ACCEPTED.

There was laughter, tears, and lively praise for the Scooter's.

"Guess where you are going young lady?" Amelia hugged Gram until she almost fell over.

"Thank you, Papa, for leaving us your little black book," Amelia lovingly whispered as she stepped onto Irish soil.