Heir To The Seashell Chute

Registered letters are rarely a good thing, so when our mail carrier, Janet handed me one and asked me to sign for it, I found myself trying desperately to conceal my shaking hands.

I scribbled something that vaguely resembled a signature and she smiled sympathetically.

"Might be good news," she offered, "I've actually seen it happen."

It was sweet of her to try.

The envelope was pretty thick, and full-sized manilla, the kind you use when you don't want to fold important papers. I could feel a lump forming in my throat, slowly stealing my air.

My face felt hot as I read the return address, Taekhen, Daye, Lutin, Quik - Attorneys At Law. Was I being sued? Who would sue me? My mind raced through every bill I owed, there were a lot of them. But I was paying them down.

Could it have been that car accident I had last year? No, that didn't make sense. The cops and the insurance company both said it was the other driver's fault. In fact, they paid me. Not a lot, only $3000, but it was enough to bail me out, for a while.

I opened the envelope and slid the contents into my hand. There was a letter and a stapled, official-looking document with a blue corner.

The letter was from someone by the name of Muriel Scales:

Dear Ms. Jenkins,

We represent the estate of the late William Henry Andrew Kincade. As you can see from the enclosed copy of the testator's Last Will and Testament, you have been named an heir. Kindly review same and contact us at your earliest convenience.

Yours very truly,

Murial B, Scales, BBA, JD, esqe.

William Kincade? The name didn't ring a bell. Who the hell was William Kincade? I sat down and mentally searched for anyone I'd ever known in my life named William. No. Nobody.

I skimmed the will, hoping it would give me a clue. It did. I was my crazy uncle Willie. Well, it was my mother's uncle, my great-uncle.

I don't know why he'd be leaving anything to me. I couldn't stand him. Nobody in the family could stand him. Except for Mom. For some reason, she had a soft spot for the gnarly old lunatic. I'll never know why. The man was impossible!

As a kid, she'd force me to spend 2 weeks every summer with him. She said the company did him good. It didn't. He barely looked at me and when he had no choice but to communicate with me, he didn't speak, he mumbled and waved his withered hand around.

He lived in an abandoned lighthouse on a small island just far enough off the coast to make access to the civilized world inconvenient. There was no ferry. We had to take a boat to get there and back and he even insisted on making that difficult.

He had a small motorboat, but, we couldn't use that. Nope, he'd come over and fetch us in this rickety old rowboat and return us to the mainland the same way.

Everything around him, his home, his clothes, even his skin smelled like a mixture of stagnant water and day-old fish - not quite rancid, but bad enough you wouldn't even feed it to your cat.

All he ever ate were sardine sandwiches with mustard on some weird hard bread even though Mom would spend the entire 2 weeks cooking and fussing over him. He'd just mumble something about there being no need and then go off with a sandwich in his hand to putter around.

That's all he did, putter. He puttered around the island from the time he woke up at 4 am until he fell asleep in his old rocking chair. He wandered around and collected stuff, junk. He collected little bits of wood, sea glass, seashells, rocks that caught his eye, and bottles that washed up on the shore. Anything random and worthless seemed to fascinate him.

I hadn't seen Uncle Willie in over 20 years. Not since Mom died. I hate to admit it, but I'd all but forgotten about him.

He obviously hadn't forgotten about me. And he obviously hated me as much as I did him and wanted to make sure the last thing he did in life was remind me.

Fifty thousand dollars, the entirety of his cash holdings were to be earmarked for the establishment of a Maritime Museum so that young people would know the old ways of the sea. That's what he said.

He ordered that the rickety old lighthouse be restored with some of the money. It would house the museum.

There was a whole lot more babbling about how he didn't want a funeral or a wake or any fuss at all, some bitching about what's wrong with today's world and the people in it, and finally he got around to me:

And to my little treasure, Nikki, I leave all my treasures, particularly the contents of my cellar in honour of all those priceless summers we spent together. I hope they bring you as much joy as you brought to me.

You'll have to get the key from the lawyers.

Also, please take whatever you want from the house that may be of sentimental value.

Sarcastic old coot! I didn't know whether to laugh or be angry. I was both. I sure could have used the $50,000. But no, instead, I get a cellar full of crap. Well played, Uncle Willie, well played. As miserable in death as he was in life!

I waited a few days to contact Ms. Scales. I wasn't sure I wanted to bother with any of this. But I didn't want to get in trouble for ignoring an official lawyer's letter.

She was nice enough and invited me to go over to the island with her this afternoon. She was overseeing the will and Uncle Willie's crazy museum idea.

The lighthouse was almost falling down. The door was wide open, or rather, the half of it that existed was. That familiar smell permeated everything but was sort of hovering underneath a dusty damp overlay. There were cobwebs in every corner on every surface.

I kicked broken pieces of furniture and bits of garbage from under my feet and made my way to the kitchen. A small pot sat on the stove, both brown from dirt and age.

Beside the stove was the chute. It was a small hole in the wall with a little door. It's where Uncle Willie dumped all his supposed treasures. They went in there and down some sort of tube or slide and into his hand-dug cellar.

The paper sign above it was barely legible, "Seashell Onlee." I snorted, the man couldn't even spell only. And I can only guess he meant seashells. Obviously, there was more than one.

"Anything from the house you'd like to take?" Murial asked me. She tried to sound professional but concerned. She came off more uncomfortable than anything. It was clear from her designer outfit and high heels that she wasn't accustomed to such humble and filthy surroundings.

I shook my head. This was pointless.

"Do I have to go in that cellar?" I asked. I couldn't see any benefit to prolonging this charade. There was nothing of value here, sentimental or otherwise.

As we walked outside she handed me the key, "It is," she motioned toward the mound of dirt with a locked door on top, "I'm obliged to see you take possession of your bequest."

Fine. I went over and opened the door. It was heavy and inside, more of the same smell, stagnant sea, day-old fish, dust, damp, dirt. Disgusting.

"I'll give you a few minutes," Murial called behind her as she took a few steps from me and held her cell phone to the air in search of a signal. "Examine the contents carefully, they're yours."

I knelt down at the edge of Willie's cellar and picked up a handful of seashells. They weren't even nice! They were ugly and broken. Crazy, crazy old man!

I tossed them aside, into the old wheelbarrow. I figured I might as well clean the cellar out while I was there. It'd have to be done eventually for the "museum."

I picked up and tossed handful after handful of disgusting seashell shards, half shells, some full ones. All of them boring, old, and ugly just like Uncle Willie. I could feel the anger welling up inside me as I dug deeper and deeper into the pit of sea garbage.

I was up to my elbows before I could see the dirt floor. It was littered with rocks, some tiny, some a bit bigger. There had to be over 100 of them. Most were white and roundish, others were more pinkish or yellow. I picked up a few and placed them in my hand. They were beautiful! Stunning!

I put them in my pocket and picked up the rest.

Murial came back over. "Have you found anything of value? Anything you wish to keep?"

I shrugged. "Maybe nothing of value, exactly," I said, pulling a few of the rocks out of my pocket, "but I really like these rocks."

She looked at me like I was crazy, as crazy as old Uncle Willie. Her eyes were wide and she started tugging at her blouse collar as if she suddenly became short of breath.

She kind of fell back against the side of the lighthouse, her eyes fixed on my rocks, and squeaked out a couple words, "Holy shit!"