The Little Black Notebook

Sarah walked into the old house and looked around. Dust covered everything, floral wallpaper peeling off the walls, and birds had come in through a broken window to make nests in the sconces. She wrinkled her nose at the musty smell and heaved a sigh, wondering what she was going to do with this mess of a house. The house had belonged to her grandparents and she had vague memories of visiting as a child, but had not been there in over thirty years. Nobody had lived here in decades and it was obvious by the appearance. The house had good bones but needed a lot of work to make it livable. She wandered from room to room, looking at old photos of people she did not know and the variety of knick knacks on the shelves. The Victorian style furniture had been covered in protective plastic, so it had been saved from the years of neglect.

Sarah had inherited the house five years prior, after the death of her father, but had not bothered to come look at it. She was living a comfortable life in the city, married to a wealthy lawyer, and had no interest in a house in the country. Her life had been upended 6 months earlier when her husband died of a sudden heart attack and Sarah discovered that he had been deeply in debt. She had to sell everything to pay off his debt and found herself about to be homeless. She remembered the house in the country so she packed up what little she had left, put it into storage, and drove to what would be her new home. This will do.

She went into the bedroom that had been her grandparents and looked around. The linen would need to be changed and washed, some dusting and she would be able to sleep there tonight. She stripped the bed and took the bedding to the back porch, where the washing machine was. She hoped it still worked after years of not being used. She turned on the water and rusty looking water started to fill the tub. Hallelujah, it worked! She let the water run and it finally cleared so she let it run through a cycle to clean the tub. A trip to the kitchen revealed everything there was also covered in dust. She went to town to buy cleaning supplies, personal items, and some food, then went back to the house and started cleaning. She put the sheets and blankets into wash then went to the kitchen to clean. She had found a broom, dustpan, mop, and bucket on the back porch, so she was able to sweep and mop the floors. She taped a paper bag over the broken window to keep more birds and bugs from coming in until she could get the glass replaced. After cleaning the old bird nests from the sconces, and washing them, she uncovered the furnishings in the living room and did a quick wipe down of the tables and chairs. She fixed herself some dinner then took a shower to wash away the dirt and sweat from her day of cleaning. There would be no TV to watch so she wandered to the bookcase to look for something to read. Nothing looked interesting so she went to bed.

Sarah awoke the next morning feeling stiff from a lumpy mattress and decided she needed to get her bed there as soon as possible. She knew it would take a few days to have the moving company pick up her belongings and deliver them so she decided to flip the mattress hoping that would help. When she pushed the mattress off of the box springs she saw a little black notebook had been tucked between them. She picked up the leatherbound Moleskine notebook and opened it to find that it was her grandfather’s journal. She put the notebook on the nightstand, finished making the bed, then took the journal to the kitchen with her. She called the moving company to arrange to have her belongings delivered to the house, fixed herself coffee and a bagel, then sat at the kitchen table and started to read.

There was much she did not know about her grandparents and this journal helped Sarah to know her grandfather a little better. He started writing it after her grandmother died in 1999. He poured his heart out on those pages, his love for, and devotion to, his bride evident in his words. He had bought the house in 1946, after returning from WWII, and right before he married her grandmother. He wanted a home to bring his bride to. They lived there their entire married life and raised her father as their only child. There had been another child, a daughter, who died of polio when she was three years old. Sarah took the journal to the living room and put it on the coffee table to read later.

She went about pulling the wallpaper down from where it was starting to peel away and discovered the walls underneath were wood. They were dark and she thought a coat or two of white paint would brighten up the living room. She spent the remainder of the day cleaning and the house was starting to feel more like home. She showered and fixed herself dinner then built a small fire in the fireplace, moved a wingback chair over in front of the fire, and started reading the journal again. She read until the end of the journal, which was dated December 24, 2002. Her grandfather had died on Christmas morning of 2002. His last entry was that he had put all of their valuables into a safe deposit at the bank in town and that the key was in the journal. Taped to the inside of the back cover Sarah found the key and a safe deposit box number written underneath it. She took the key from the book and laid it on the nightstand, thought about his last entry, and wondered if he knew that he was going to die that night? Sarah decided to make a trip to the bank the next morning to collect the contents of the box, then put the notebook on the nightstand next to the key, got into bed, turned off the light, and went to sleep.

Sarah woke early the next morning and made a list of things she wanted to do while in town. She looked up the address for a glass repair company to come out and replace the broken window, found the addresses for the bank and for the cable company, got dressed, and headed to town. She went to the cable company to arrange for the cable to be turned on, went to the glass repair shop and scheduled a time for someone to come out and repair the broken window and check the other windows for leaks and drafts. She went shopping for more food then, finally, went to the bank. She did not know why she was so nervous about going there and collecting the contents of the box, but she put it off until the very last moment. She entered the bank, approached a teller, and told the man that she was there to open the safe deposit box. He called over a manager who got the companion key, escorted Sarah into the vault, and together they unlocked the door, then the manager left her to open the box in private. Inside she found her grandparents wedding rings, a few other pieces of jewelry that she assumed had belonged to her grandmother, a stack of envelopes, and $20,000 dollars in cash. She gathered everything up, left the vault, went to the manager to return the key, and asked about opening a checking account at that bank. She deposited the $20,000 and took the rest of the items home. The cash would help immensely with the repairs that needed to be made on the house so that came as a huge relief to Sarah.

When she got back to the house, she put the bag with the contents of the safe deposit box on the coffee table, put away the groceries, did some more cleaning, and kept glancing at the bag on the table. She finally went over to the couch, sat down, and took everything out of the bag. She held the wedding rings in her hand and felt tears well up in her eyes thinking about her own deceased husband. She laid the rings down and inspected the other jewelry that was there. Necklaces with emeralds and rubies, earrings to match the necklaces, all very pretty and sentimental. She picked up the stack of envelopes and started going through them. The first envelope contained the deed to the house, it was paid in full and the taxes had been paid by her father and then by his estate after he passed. She was now responsible for them. That was fine, she could take care of that. The rest of the envelopes contained love letters that her grandparents had written to each other while he was away at war. Sarah put the letters away – some things are meant to be private. She lit a fire in the fireplace, turned on some music, looked around at her new home and thought, “Yes, this will do nicely.”