“You’re sure?”
“Inez will confirm it.”
“No,” he said. “I mean I’m sure.”
He reached beneath his bed and pulled out a rectangular tin box.
Inside were old property-tax receipts, insurance documents, photographs, and several yellowed envelopes.
“The deed Derek knows about is in the filing cabinet,” Dad said. “A copy.”
“And the original?”
Dad lifted the rusty key.
I looked at it again.
“What does that have to do with the original?”
He stood.
“Come with me.”
Mom immediately rose.
“Manuel.”
“It’s time.”
She looked from him to me, then sighed.
“All right. But quietly.”
We left the storage room through the side door and crossed the yard.
Dad did not head toward the house.
He walked toward his old workshop.
I had grown up in that workshop.
When I was a child, it smelled of cedar shavings, varnish, coffee, and summer heat. Dad had built dining tables there, cabinets, bookshelves, church pews, rocking chairs, and once an enormous walnut desk for a judge who insisted on paying him twice the quoted price.
Derek and I used to sweep sawdust for pocket money.
The workshop had been closed for years except when Dad took small commissions.
He unlocked the front door with an ordinary key.
Inside, moonlight fell through the dusty windows.
His tools hung where they always had.
Dad walked to the longest workbench.
“Help me move this.”
The bench was heavier than I remembered.
We shifted it away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow wooden panel.
Dad pressed one corner.
The panel opened.
Inside was an old iron lock.
I stared at him.
“You built a hidden compartment?”
“Your grandfather did.”
That surprised me even more.
Dad inserted the rusty key.
For a moment, it resisted.
Then the lock turned.
Inside the compartment was a wooden box.
No cash.
No jewelry.
No dramatic treasure.
Documents.
Letters.
A ledger.
Several sealed envelopes.
And a thin notebook tied with the same blue thread as the key.
Dad took everything to the workbench.
