Chapter 5: Inheritance of Secrets
Jia absent-mindedly rubbed her fingertips over the edges of the amulet. She dragged her thumbnail over one of the edges and counted the marks as minor as the markings on a coin.
Nine.
Hmm, she thought. That’s the biggest single-digit number: nine. What does it mean? Despite her interest in numbers and math, especially how it related to music, she dismissed the thought and joined her grandmother in the living room after a moment.
“Zilly left, I see?”
“Yeah, her little brother is home soon. And—”
“And she wants to be there when he gets home because she has no idea what shape her mother will be in—”
“Right.”
Jia shook her head and sat down. “That’s for sure. It’s one reason I like her so much. She really cares about people.”
“Hey, Peach, have you started going through your mother’s things in her closet yet?”
“Hell, no, I can’t bring myself to do that yet. I suppose I should do it soon,” she sighed and stared out the back door to the patio and, further, the back of the fenced-in yard.
“Well, you should. I went through that stack of paperwork today,” Constance said, standing and picking up a pile of envelopes and paper on the dining table, “and it ain’t good news.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was deep in debt.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Because I went through the stacks of unpaid bills—mostly credit cards—it also looks like she hasn’t paid the mortgage in a couple of months.”
“Mortgage? What’s that?”
“It’s the note on the house loan. The house payment. Like rent, except you’re buying the place. But if it doesn’t get settled—”
“Yeah, it means I don’t get to live here much longer.”
“Unless someone hands you a wad of money.”
“That ain’t gonna happen.”
“Yeah, right. I’ve seen some pretty astonishing things in life, but that seems a bit of a stretch. And before you ask, I can’t help either. I mean, I don’t have the kind of money to take care of her back bills—”
“How much did she owe?”
Constance hesitated for a full ten seconds. “About fifty thousand.”
“Fifty thousand dollars? What the fuck? How?”
“I don’t know what she was spending it on, but that girl was never good with money. She’d get an allowance, and then it would be gone. She either spent it or gave it away to friends in need.”
Jia stood up and paced for a few moments. Constance finally said, “You got anything to do now? School’s over? No homework?”
“Just a test on Thursday.”
“So go through her closet.”
“Aargh,” Jia said, shaking her head. “Okay, okay. I mean, yeah, I will.”
“Now?”
“You sound just like Mom—”
Constance gave her a goofy look. “Well, duh.”
After a moment, Jia shrugged and went down the hallway.
Since her mother’s hospitalization several weeks ago, Jia had scarcely dared to step into the bedroom. She lingered at the threshold, fetching only the items her mother had explicitly requested as if crossing further might uncover something she wasn’t ready to face. With her mother gone, the door felt heavier yet strangely inviting. Hesitation warred with curiosity as she finally crossed into the room’s depths.
The closet yielded an eclectic trove: shoes arranged with the precision of a past life, their silence echoing her mother’s absence; shoeboxes crammed with forgotten fragments of memory; belts coiled like patient serpents of leather; and a medley of knick-knacks, each a puzzle piece of a life she feared to see whole. As Jia laid them on the bed one by one, they became a tapestry of her mother’s essence—mundane yet extraordinary, comforting yet disconcerting.
“Grandma?” Jia raised her voice to be heard from the bedroom.
“What’s up, Peach?”
“What should I do with all of this stuff?”
“Hang on.” Constance appeared shortly with a few large plastic garbage bags.
“Put what you don’t want in the bags. We’ll donate it.”
Minutes melted away as Jia methodically filled two bags with clothing and sundry items from the closet’s depths. Finally, only the top shelf remained, but she wasn’t tall enough to reach it. Retrieving a stool from the kitchen, she began decluttering the upper level and transferring its contents to the waiting bags below.
As she removed all the items, her fingers brushed against a small wooden box hidden at the back of the shelf. She coaxed it closer, and its touch sent an unexpected jolt through her, electrifying her senses. She pulled the box down, stepped off the stool, and sat on a corner of the bed. The box was at once ancient and achingly familiar, as if it whispered secrets and stories from a past deeply entwined with her own yet just beyond the reach of her conscious understanding.
It was as if she’d seen it before, but she could recall no specific moment in her past when it had appeared.
She gently carried it into the living room and said, “Hey, Grandma, have you ever seen this?”
Constance took the box slowly and, as her eyes widened, said, “Well, yes. But it’s been decades, I’m sure. Your mother never let me look inside.”
“Why? Where did she get it? It looks ancient.”
“I think she got it from her father, Sean, but I couldn’t tell you exactly when. And I don’t know why she kept me out of it. But I let it be. None of my business. Both Sean and your mom made that clear.” She turned the box over a few times before handing it back.
“It’s weird,” said Jia, “it’s like there are no hinges or openings, but when I shook it, things rattled around inside. How do you open it?”
Constance shook it briefly, then turned it over again. “You’re right; I don’t know how to open it.” After a few minutes, Jia took it back. She ran her fingers softly along the edges.
“Here,” she said, pointing. “Some small grooves.” She ran her fingernail over the set of tiny bumps on the edge. She felt another mild jolt after counting them.
“Ohmigod. There are nine of them. That’s too weird—”
“Nine? Nine what?”
“Grooves,” Jia held out her amulet. “Just like this. I counted them—nine small grooves in the edge next to the inscription, which I can’t read. I wonder if—” She held the box next to the amulet and lightly ran the edge of the amulet along the area where she’d found the grooves on the box—a small and faint musical tone emitted from the box, followed by a click. A lid slid open, revealing the contents within.
Jia and Constance locked gazes, their eyes widening with a shared sense of wonder. The room felt alive.