Word Count: 436
She was old, stingy-mean with her money. Wore thin cotton dresses covered with flowers that once had been blue. Kept her cookie jar filled with freshly baked oatmeal or chocolate chip. In a hug, she smelled like bread dough.
Typical grandma with red linoleum kitchen floors and checkered oilcloth covering the table. Black olive-wood rosary beads hung on a crucifix over the bed in her room. I’d seen them wrapped in my grandfather’s hands in his casket. Unraveled from his fingers before he’d been put in the ground. Nothing wasted, that was my grandma.
Somewhere locked away in that shivering old house was her jewelry. Somewhere too was the cash from the policy when grandpa died. I visited often and snooped whenever she turned around. The bathroom was right past her bedroom down the dark hall. I’d made my way through her sweater drawer, her undies and bras. The slips and the balled up silk stockings. She was likely the only lady alive yet to have them; real silk was scarce during World War II.
The jewelry in the box on top of the doily on top of the dresser were all paste. Yet I knew she had rings that she’d put away when her fingers crippled and curled. I needed more time to find the good stuff, the cash. I am seventeen. Cookies don’t satisfy me anymore. And impatient; she’s old but if she has her way she’ll outlive us all.
Grandma was making soup. I was sitting at the table, dabbing my finger on the red squares of the tablecloth. Plotting my next move. The stash had to be in her bedroom closet; I’d gone through nearly every other possibility. All I needed was for her to be occupied elsewhere long enough so she wouldn’t catch me in the middle of my search.
She poured out a glass of milk. Put a plate of cookies out for me. And excused herself to go use the bathroom. I smiled. I’d rigged it, you see, left the seat up so she’d likely near fall in and be stuck for a while.
I ransacked that closet. Ignored her weak old-lady calls for help. Found nothing. Nothing! I left. It served her right.
They found her three days later. On the pot, holding a strongbox full of cash, her jewelry, some Apple stock certs. I, of course, was arrested for murder. Who would’ve thought she’d have hidden it all in the tank? As they explained to me later, it served as a filler, saving water. She was planning on handing it to me that day.
