Gran turned and smiled. “Absolutely, Hannah. Wash me white as snow.”
•••
We’d been at it for about two and half hours—alternately using the stump grinder, shovels, a pickax, and the metal detector, working on the trunk itself and digging a trench around it, then stopping to see if we got any metallic readings. The sun was hot, my shirt was sticking to my skin, and my stomach was growling. I was about to suggest I go make sandwiches, when Matt stopped the grinder for about the zillionth time.
“Did you hear that?”
It was hard to hear anything over the roar and whine of the engine.
“Not really.”
“I think we hit metal.”
He lifted the metal detector and turned it on. Sure enough, it pinged.
Excited, we both climbed into the trench and looked. All I could see was dirt, sawdust, and tree root. “I’ll take the pickax to it,” Matt said.
He swung it like a miner. Amazing, how hard pecan wood can be. I wondered how long it took for wood to petrify. After picking and chipping for what seemed like an eternity, the corner of a something distinctly non-treelike emerged. It looked like the metal corner of a trunk.
My pulse raced. “Wow.”
Matt nodded, his mouth tight. “Let’s work this sucker free.”
It took another hour and two broken handsaw blades, but he managed to cut away the stump to reveal a suitcase. It was metal, with tattered remnants of dirty cloth still stuck to it in spots.
I went in to tell Gran. She was seated at the kitchen table as the relentlessly cheerful aide made lunch. “I need to talk to my grandmother alone for a moment.”
“I’m in the middle of making tuna salad.”
“That’s okay. I’ll take over.”
“Well—okey dokey.”
We waited until she left the room. I suspected she was listening at the door. This aide had been full of questions about what we were doing in the backyard.
“You found it?” Gran asked eagerly.
I nodded.
“Oh my goodness.” Gran’s face was pale, her voice breathless. “I knew you would. Is it—is it still closed?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she personified the term Steel Magnolia. “I want to be the one to open it. Tell Hannah to go on home.”
I went into the other room and delivered the news.
“Oh no—I can’t leave! I’ll be fired by the agency.”
“Well, then, we need you to go to the store. Gran needs...” I searched my mind for something difficult to find. “... powder toothpaste. The whitening kind for sensitive teeth.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing!”
“Well, try to find it. And get her some hand lotion, too. The kind that’s scented like cucumbers and lime.”
“Where on earth will I find that?”
“They sell it at the bath shop at the mall in Hammond.”
