by Carmen Henesy

Created on: August 25, 2010

Laughing All the Way to the Bank

Sarah climbed the stairs of the small farmhouse to her aunt’s bedroom, feeling incredibly weary. It had been a long day and she felt so alone and bereft. Her aunt had been her only living relative. She hadn’t been ill a day in her life and, suddenly, without warning, her heart stopped beating as she slept in the bedroom where she’d spent every night for the past sixty years. Sarah had gotten the call while she was making rounds at St. Mark’s Hospital where she was a second year surgery resident.

She arranged to take a week’s leave and went home to make arrangements. Old Mr. Jeffries, her aunt’s attorney, told her that the old farmhouse, paid in full, and all her aunt’s possessions had been left to her. There was no money, really, other than the small trust
Sarah’s parents had left when they were killed in a car accident when Sarah was ten.

The following morning, dawned bright and sunny and Sarah began to take an inventory of the house. She would not sell it. She loved its bright cheeriness and the lovely furnishings and it had been her home for over eighteen years. Tears stung her eyes as she thought of her aunt, busy in the kitchen, baking wonderful cakes andbcookies and showering her niece with love. It would be a struggle to keep the farmhouse and to pay the taxes on it but, once she finished her residency, she would be able to afford it. She wanted to practice in town where her father had been a physician and the farm was only a short commute. And it would be a wonderful place tobraise children, she thought, touching the diamond on her finger.

Upstairs in the bedroom, she looked at the old white trunk, wondering what was inside. It was locked. Where was the key? She looked on the dresser and in the drawers, without success. The lock was old and quite rusted. The trunk itself was of rough wood, and sat in a corner of the room. Sarah thought that, perhaps,she could use a screwdriver to break the lock. It was then that she noticed the red velvet ribbon hanging on a hook inside her aunt’s closet. Dangling at the end of it was an old rusty key. After several tries, the key turned the lock. Sarah lifted the creaking lid. It seemed that the trunk held old dressing gowns. She lifted the top one away, then gave a gasp, grabbing at the other. There before her, were stacks and stacks of money, twenty dollar bills, tied in packets of five hundred dollars. When she was finally finished counting, she realized she was two hundred thousand dollars richer than she was when she started.

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