Granite
It is hard not to feel sad about all the loss and death that seems to keep following us everywhere, but at least this time it was a peaceful one. I also felt even more motivated now to get the cabin fixed up in the old woman’s honor. Amber and I had left the house immediately and headed straight to the cabin right after we called the ambulance to come and find her sleeping peacefully in the afterlife in her bed. We took only a small bag with enough food and drinks to last us a few days while we worked on fixing up the cabin. We were well within reach of getting back to the store, but we would run out of money soon with the old woman gone. I knew that she had a little stash of cash hidden away in her teapots, but I wasn’t about to lay on hand on that; it belonged to her.
While I am working on the flooring of the cabin, and replacing a few planks of rotted wood, I notice a strange board in the floor. It isn’t rotten and the wood isn’t bowed, but for some reason it feels hollow and moves differently than the rest of the floor. I bend down to take a closer look and notice that there is a very miniscule gap between where this board touches the others. I wedge my fingernail into the thin space and am able to wrench the board free. When I lift it up, I am surprised to find a small, secret hiding place beneath the floorboards. Amber walks in with a handful of herbs that she was able to forage near the outside of the cabin and looks at me on the floor with curiosity.
“What are you doing down there?” she asks.
“I’ve found a hidden space in the floor,” I say. “It’s kind of cool, actually. I wonder what the old man used it for.”
I reach my hand carefully inside, making sure to go slowly in case there’s anything in there that’s going to cut or bite me; never can be too sure inside the crevices of old and abandoned cabins. When my fingers touch on something, I pull it up.
“Oh my God,” Amber says as the herbs fall from her hands.
In my hand, I hold a giant wad of hundred dollar bills, all wrapped together with a thick piece of twine. Wondering what the chances are for this to get any more shocking; I reach my hand into the hole again. After five times of reaching into the hole, Amber and I sit and stare at the piles of hundred dollar bills on the floor around us.
“There are probably hundreds of thousands of dollars here,” I say. “Enough to last us for as long as we need.”
“This must have been where her husband hid his wealth,” Amber says in equal astonishment. She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “We owe her a great deal.”
“Agreed,” I say. “And tonight I want to build a bonfire to honor her and her husband, and the fresh start that they have given us.”
We go down to the town and get everything that we need from the store; all the food and wine and supplies that we can carry, and a couple of large backpacks to carry it all back up to the cabin. Then, when we get back and evening falls, Amber cooks a delicious dinner on the stove that I now have working, and I build a huge bonfire outside. We take some time to settle into our new home, and then pour glasses of wine to take out with us as we sit by the bonfire and watch the flames stretch up against the starry sky. We lift our glasses toward the stars and give a nod to the old couple whom we barely knew that has somehow managed to give us exactly what we’ve been hoping for.
“Hey,” I say after a pause of quiet. “I saw the pregnancy test behind the towels in the cottage bathroom. Did you take it?”
“No,” Amber says, avoiding my eyes. “I’m not ready to take it, not yet anyway.”
“Okay,” I say as I reach my hand over to hold hers and let her know that I respect her decision. I am really dying to know, though.
