Chapter 19
The window in the bank manager’s office faces southwest, so I can track the progress of the setting sun, minute by minute. It’s one of those cold, clear days at the start of January, the true breath of the coming winter. The oranges on the horizon are so pungent, my heart hurts.
Or maybe my heart hurts because unless someone appears to escort me down to the safe-deposit vault within the next three minutes, I’m going to miss the four-thirty ferry back to Winthrop Island.
But there’s no hurrying anyone around here.
As you might expect, my dad entrusted his overdraft to the oldest bank in New London, and while it’s since been swallowed by larger and larger banks, working its way up the food chain until the sign above the door now reads Chase, the employees remain, shall we say, conscious of their dignity.
I check my phone again. Sixteen minutes past four.
I rise from my chair to stand at the door and search the soaring wood-and-marble lobby for signs of life. A single teller stands at her window, staring at the bas-relief above the revolving door. Even the dust motes hang in the air, too torpid to move.
“Excuse me,” I call out. “Do you know where the manager went? She left me in her office and disappeared.”
The teller picks up the phone next to her station and presses a few buttons. Smiles vacantly at me as she waits for an answer on the other end.
I open my messages and find the chat with Ben.
Hey there, sorry to bother you. Just a heads up that I might not make the 430. Can I ask you to keep P with you until I get back? TYSM
(I debate adding an emoji, can’t decide which one, and leave it as is.)
A few seconds later, the dots appear.
Ofc. Hope all ok?
I find the gif of the DMV sloths in Zootopia and send it. An instant later, the HA HA appears in a bubble atop.
I’m so engrossed in this exchange that I don’t even notice the reappearance of the bank manager, until she clears her throat and says, “Miss Cooper? I’m sorry for the delay. There’s a situation we need to discuss with you.”
—
Because Maman couldn’t remember the name of the bank where the safe-deposit box was located—But darling, it’s been decades—I had to search for Dad’s financial statements until I finally discovered them yesterday afternoon in a metal box under his bed.
As soon as school was over for the day, I caught the ferry to the mainland and walked into the Chase Bank at half past three, expecting to walk out no more than half an hour later with the contents of Dad’s safe-deposit box.
Now here I am. Sitting in a hard plastic chair before the bank manager’s desk while she explains to me that somebody came into the bank last week, claimed to be Lucy Cooper, and demanded access to the box.
“I don’t understand. I’m Lucy Cooper.”
“Yes. Well. That’s what she said.”
“You didn’t open the box for her, did you?”
The manager’s name is Trudy and she has probably worked here since before I was born, when it was called the First National Bank of New London and my father’s account still showed a positive balance.
She clicks her scarlet fingernails on the computer keyboard in front of her and sends me an offended glance over the top of her glasses.
“Of course not,” she says. “There were irregularities.”
“Yeah, there were irregularities! She isn’t Lucy Cooper!”
“She forgot to bring her identification”—Trudy holds up her hands to place a pair of scarlet-tipped quote marks around the word forgot—“and she claimed the key had been lost.”
“Who was she? What did she look like?”
“We have security footage,” she says, “but I’ll need permission from corporate to share that with you.”
“Excuse me, but I really think I should know who’s out there impersonating me?”
“I understand, Miss Cooper,” she says, in that voice you learn at corporate service training seminars. “We’ll share that information with you as soon as possible.”
“I don’t understand why that information wasn’t shared with me already.”
Trudy pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and turns back to the computer. “Because we didn’t have any means of reaching you. We sent an email to your father—”
“My father’s—” I hesitate. “Deceased.”
“Well, you’re going to have to go through the process of closing his account, per our official guidelines. The good news is, he added you as an account owner, so you’re able to access the box. With the proper identification, of course. And the key.”
“I’ve already given you my ID. And the key’s right here.” I remove it from my handbag and hold it up. “What I want to know is who’s been trying to get in there before me, and why. And how she knew my father had a safe-deposit box here to begin with.”
“The authorities have been notified,” says Trudy. “We’ll be in touch with next steps.”
“That’s great. In the meantime, is there any chance I can open up the box in time to catch the next ferry back to Winthrop Island?”
Trudy gives me a pitying look. “We’ll do our best.”
—
At last aboard the six-thirty ferry. I hurry up the metal stairs from the car deck to the deckhouse and settle myself on one of the benches.
Outside, the freezing air whistles along the sides of the ship.
The lights of New London glow fuzzily through the silted windows.
I set down my handbag and unzip my backpack.
Okay, so maybe a tiny part of my heart harbored some hopeless romantic dream of opening that safe-deposit box to find a wooden chest filled with silver pieces of eight or gold doubloons. The lottery win that would solve all my problems at once—the financial ones, anyway.
But when I turned the key in the lock and peered inside, I saw…a manila envelope.
Inside, a thick packet of papers held together with a metal binder clip. On top, a handwritten note: For the exclusive use of my daughter, Lucy Cooper, and/or her heirs. B. Cooper.
I pull out the envelope from my backpack.
My heart aches as I thumb through the papers.
Maps, notes, photocopied pages of ancient documents.
A notebook, crammed with my father’s familiar old-fashioned handwriting.
The sum of his life’s work. Every day of every summer flashes across my mind, all at once.
This absurd hope that spun through his mind, this delusion he wove into the fabric of his life.
False lead after false lead. Each one just promising enough to catapult him to the next. Going in circles. Going nowhere.
What a waste, I think. What a waste of a man’s days.
My phone vibrates.
I reach for my handbag. There are four or five other people on the ferry at this time of the year, at this time of day. Winter night already solid black around us. Water like obsidian. I recognize a couple of faces—tired, unsociable. I pull the phone from my bag and read Ben’s name on the screen.
“Hey. I’m on the ferry now. Is everything okay?”
“We’re all good. Eating some leftover pasta for dinner.” He pauses. “We’re at my place, though. There’s kind of a thing with your furnace.”