One Day

“Open up the bookcase,” Tiffany demanded.

“No,” Sean shot back at her as they both stood in the freshly painted quarters. “I’m not going to bust open an antique book case just because you feel like something is inside. The damn thing is over a hundred years old.”

“And?”

“And I’m not gonna do it. We’ve been over this how many times?”

Pat looked on shaking his head in half laughter-half disbelief of the bickering that was unfolding in front of him. As he did so, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Feeling the vibration, he looked down at the screen and told them both that his presence was needed elsewhere.

“Thanks for the sandwich, man. I gotta go,” he said, extending his hand for their routine goodbye handshake. “And it was a pleasure meeting you as well, Tiffany.”

“Bye human,” she said, twirling her entire body and marching off to the room that housed the bookcase. Sean hasted his way in front of her, placing each arm against the wall to act as a blockade to prevent any further advancement.

She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him.

“Tiffany, we’re not going to destroy something that my grandfather held on to his whole life. You think you can just come in here and do whatever you want, meddle with my life?”

She disregarded his comment and maneuvered her way under his extended arms, giggling as she made her way through the doorway. His reaction to her persistence was a frustrated sigh followed by him placing his head in his right hand. His footsteps were a welcome sound to her ears, as it let her know that what she was doing was working.

As he entered the room, he saw Tiffany sitting in the chair, looking out the window. She felt his eyes watching her and slowly turned to meet his eyes from across the room.

“So was your grandfather a writer?”

“What? No. He just read a lot. He believed that words on paper were the only thing that could stand the test of time. I always used to tell him that he was wrong, but it looks like I was.”

“I think you have to open it up, at least the hollow spot. I think he left something behind for you. Were you meant to have this? Like, was this left specifically for you, by name?”

He leaned back against the pastel white doorway, rubbing an itch on his nose before responding to her question. He didn’t know whether he was doing a good enough job of masking his existential crisis, and her very being was making his think about it even more.

“Yeah, he left it to me. Him and my sister had a bit of falling out so everything is kinda left to me by default.”

Her eyes lit up at the prospect of there being other heirlooms to explore. He saw the way she glowed once the words left her lips and immediately shot her down.

“No, no, no. Ok, look. If I open this thing up, that’s it. No more cracking open other stuff he left for me, but under one condition.”

She nodded her head in approval.

“If there’s nothing inside, you leave her and never come back. Not even to visit Martha across the street. Deal?”

“But she’s been my frie—“

He cut her off before she could even finish her sentence.

“No. I don’t care. Never again. If you’re that confident there’s something inside, you’d jump at this.”

“Do I get half?”

Shaking his head in disbelief at just how difficult she could be, he eventually agreed that whatever was inside, he’d split with her.

“Fine, you can get half.”

Tiffany rose up from her chair with a smile that would have lit up the room had it been later than 3 PM.

“And if I’m right do we get to look at more stuff?”

He left the room leaving her question hanging in the air. Tiffany stayed behind and admired the bookcase that intimidated her, staring it down as it remained a whole one last time. She could hear Sean digging through tools in another room for a few moments before again hearing his footsteps accompany him down the corridor.

Sean entered the room with a hatchet and a power saw.

“Which one are you going to use?”

“I’m not using anything. You are.”

“Me? Really?!”

Her reaction was not as he anticipated. He had hoped that presenting her with two less than ideal options would deter her from going through with it. He was shocked that she had picked the hatchet.

“Going with the hatchet huh?”

She looked back at him and confirmed his assertion.

“So.. right in here? Just swing it?”

“That’s usually how a hatchet works,” he sarcastically shot back at her.

She raised the hatchet over her head and swung it down against the back of the book case, causing pieces of wood to shoot across every direction of the room.

“Impressive,” Sean told her, this time with no sarcasm lightly veiled behind his words.

She smiled at him as she bent down to remove the pieces of wood that had imploded and saw a folded up piece of paper resting inside. It was clearly a dated note, as it showed signs of aging by featuring various spots of mildew around the edges. She was hesitant to unfold it, instead gazing at him to see if he would like to be the first one to read it.

“Go ahead,” he said.

She gently unfolded the note and read it to herself.

“One day you will find yourself living in a world without me,

And on that day, I want you to smile,

Because you will have been blessed by the company of an angel,

But you must be careful to not hold on to her too tightly,

For angels are meant to fly away”

She folded it back up and handed it to Sean.

“This is for you,” she told him as she took a few steps back to watch him read it. Once she noticed that he was done reading the contents,  she stood by his side.

“But I’m not an angel, I’m a seahorse,” she said as she grabbed the note and tore it in half, placing it in her pocket.