Life Surprises Read online

  There was a stunned silence in the room. After a moment, the doctor said, “I’ve read about this phenomenon but I’ve never seen an example before. It’s called a psychic scar, a birthmark which is supposed to be the body’s memory of an injury that occurred in a previous life, often the wound that caused the person’s death.”

  Sean plopped down on his chair, stunned. Then he let out a loud whoop and started to laugh excitedly. “This proves it. Now you know I’m not lying.”

  “Well now, Sean,” the doctor said, trying to calm him down, “by itself this doesn’t prove anything. We’d need more information.”

  “Like what?” Sean demanded. He was ready to do anything to make his case. But the doctor had resources that Sean knew nothing about. He contacted certain friends of his and had them do some research.

  A week later, he stopped by the house one evening and pulled a letter from his pocket. With an amused smile, he told them that he had something to read to them. He unfolded the piece of paper and began:

  “Lake County police today arrested two men who have been charged in the Silver Lake murder which occurred a month ago. In a written statement, one of the suspects confessed to placing the victim in a rainwater discharge pipe from which she was probably flushed into the lake by the force of the outflow. The victim was bound and gagged, and was thus unable to save herself.”

  He looked at them, raising his eyebrows in amazement. “Do you want to hear the victim’s name?” Everyone nodded warily. “Her name was…Mildred Evans and she was thirty-two years old. And this newspaper article is dated…June 19, 1933.”

  III

  The Key

  When I was a kid, just after World War II, I knew all the makes and models of cars. It was a lot simpler back then; each make of car had a sedan, a coupe, a convertible and a wagon. And that was it. You could tell a Chevrolet from a Pontiac from an Oldsmobile from a Buick from a Cadillac, even though they were all made by General Motors. This relatively simpler situation reflected the simpler times in which we were living, right after the end of the biggest war in history.

  When I was a teen ager, I used to take photos of all the new models as they came out in September, and put them in a big scrapbook. Even when I was twenty, it was exciting to see how the 1950 models were going to look different from the 1949’s. Up through 1949, most of the new cars were remakes of the prewar models. Everyone was so desperate for a new car after the war that the manufacturers didn’t have to think about innovations. They just cranked out the old models, and they couldn’t keep them on the showroom floor. There was often a three-month waiting period for a new car, so you didn’t care if it was more modern than the last model. All you wanted to do was to get the thing in your garage as quickly as possible. That ended in 1950 when the first truly postwar models began to come off the assembly lines.

  The 1942 models were the last pre-war cars to be made; after that, the war effort snapped up all the manufacturing facilities, and they stopped making cars for civilian use. The 1942 Chevrolet had a model called the Fleetline Aerosedan. It was a fastback with a sloping rear deck that looked streamlined. This model was often painted in two-tone colors with, for instance, a chocolate top and a tan bottom below the beltline. It was a beautiful car for that time, and the classiest thing you could own. The problem was that they were only built from September 1941 to February 1942. After that, you just plain couldn’t get one. I lusted after that car, but I was only thirteen in 1942 so my love affair was a hopeless one.

  I was born in October 1929, the month when the stock market collapsed. So when 1979 rolled around and I turned fifty, I experienced another kind of collapse. It hit me as a profound shock that here I was, more than halfway through my life, starting to slide down the backside of my years, and what had I accomplished? Nothing. Death was coming closer every minute and I had nothing to leave my family. My job as a metal shop instructor at the local Vo-Tech school was dead end and, though I enjoyed the kids, I didn’t make enough to take care of my own kids as I had planned. I loved my family, but the stress of always being short of money took the edge off of my pleasure in life. Instead of being ahead of the curve, I was always running to catch up. The more I tried to moonlight, the less time I had with my kids. I just couldn’t seem to work out a winning strategy.

  My unbelievably generous and thoughtful wife, Audrey, knew all this, of course, and was looking around for some special way in which to make her husband forget that he was now a half-century old. [She was only forty-three at the time!] So she did what most men would never believe a wife capable of doing – she shoved a copy of Hemmings in front of my five-decade-old eyes. If you’re not familiar with Hemmings, it is to the antique car collector what the Bible is to a Presbyterian. It is the magazine for old car enthusiasts.

  Audrey apologized for coming up with a birthday gift which was no longer a surprise, but she said, “I didn’t want to do this without your knowledge and agreement.” She was smart about that because of our cash flow. Even with my salary and spare jobs, we barely got through the months. Audrey could have worked – she was a nurse’s aide – but we decided she should stay at home with our four children, a job which was even more fulltime than mine! We were married in 1956 and the kids were born in 1958, 1960, 1963 and 1968, which made them 21, 19, 16 and 11 in 1979. They were all still at home including Joe, Jr., the eldest, who was a welder. Jessica, the oldest girl, attended a junior college in town and lived at home, too. Annabelle and Raymond were in high school and elementary school, respectively.

  What Audrey was rubbing under my nose was a photo of a 1942 Chevrolet Fleetline Aerosedan! As I looked at it, my heart leapt within my bosom, as they say, and I had a sensation similar to what I felt when I first laid eyes on Audrey. It wasn’t beautiful, but it-was-beautiful!!!, if you know what I mean. It was a bit pitted with rust, was all one solid dark color, and was missing some glass. Other than that, it appeared to be intact. It was currently in Pittsburgh, an hour away, and the owner wanted $300 for it.

  I looked at my wife and she looked at me and together we looked at the photo. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I thought that would make a nice 50th birthday present. Now that you’re over the hill, I don’t want you to buy a Triumph and start chasing women. This looks to be more your style and speed.”

  She knew her man. I was on the phone so fast that I left skid marks on the magazine. The man said the car was still there and was drivable. I told him we would take it, and that we would be down to get it on the weekend. My birthday wasn’t for another month, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Joey immediately offered to help restore it, as I knew he would, and we were impatient to get our hands on the thing.

  Audrey stole $100 out of her house money jar, I added $100 which I had been planning to use for a birthday present for myself, a new fly rod, and Joey, bless his heart, threw in the other $100. So on Saturday we packed five of us (Jessica had classes to attend) into my old 1969 Buick SportWagon, and made our way down to Pittsburgh.

  The Hemmings photo was obviously an old one, because the car was in worse shape than I was prepared for. Its upholstery was shot, the engine clearly needed an overhaul, and the shocks were…shocking. I pointed these things out to the old man who was trying to unload it on us, and talked him down another $50. He was a funny little old fellow with curly white hair and a French accent. His name was Herbert Marchand. We handed him the cash and shook hands.

  I cranked her up and Joey followed me in the station wagon. The two kids rode in the backseat of the ‘42, complaining all the way home about the smell and the condition of the cushions. It didn’t take me long to realize that my new pride and joy didn’t have any brakes. I told Joey, at one stop, to be prepared to catch me with his car bumper if I started to coast backward on a hill somewhere. I could hold it on the hills only by slipping the clutch, but apparently the old guy had already been doing that for years since the clutch was all but inoperable.

  It took us two hours to cover the fi
fty miles home, where I put my birthday present in the old barn we used for storage. Joey and I went out after dark and stood looking at it for a full minute. Then we looked at each other and burst into giddy laughter. “What were we thinking?” we asked in unison.

  However, the car had promise, it was an Aerosedan, something I had wanted my whole life, and we were anxious to get to it. Joey was even more excited about the project than I was, and was a tremendous help. His ideas and skill were exactly what I needed.

  We worked on it in our spare time, and it was fun cooperating on the project. We disassembled the body, removed the doors and the hatch, put it on blocks to remove the wheels, and stripped the inside so it was totally empty.

  That was when I discovered the key.

  I was tearing the mat out of the hatch compartment behind the rear seat when the ragged material under the mat caught on something. When I got the mat loose, I saw what looked like the pointed end of a key sticking out of an overlapping joint in the metal floor. I had to get a screwdriver to pry it loose, ripping open a finger in the process. When I finally got it out, it proved to be a safety deposit key. It had the number 4037 on it but no indication of which bank it belonged to.

  I put it on my dresser while we continued to work on the car. But it nagged at me – whose was it, where was the safety deposit box, what was in that box? The reason I didn’t move immediately on my curiosity, however, was because of a moral question – who did the key belong to, me or the former owner of the car? I couldn’t just ignore that issue.

  One day, I decided to get serious about the quest. I called the old man who had sold me the car, but got an intercept which stated that the number was out of service. Thinking that I could either return the key to him or learn what bank it belonged to, I drove back down to his place the next weekend. He wasn’t there, but two people were cleaning out his house. I asked for the man’s whereabouts and they informed me that he had died. I inquired about other members of the family, and one of them said that the old man had a son who lived overseas somewhere, but that he hadn’t been back to the states for years.

  Frustrated, I asked if they knew what bank the old man used. The spokesman thought it was a certain Mellon branch but, when I went there, the manager told me that the key came from a different branch. I found it, signed the signature card, showed my ID, explained the problem, and waited while the service rep made a phone call. At last I was allowed into the vault; I found box 4037, opened it, and removed a single envelope. Deciding to extend the suspense a bit longer, I drove home with it so that I could open the envelope in front of the whole family.

  I laid it on the table during dinner, causing no end of speculation. We hurried through the meal because the suspense was killing all of us. After one of Audrey’s apple pies had been consumed, it was finally time. Slitting the envelope with my pie-smeared dinner knife, I pulled out a single sheet of paper. I held it up for all to see, showing them that there was another safety deposit key taped to the bottom. This one was stamped with the number 2434. The letter was addressed to “Herbert.” It read:

  Dear Herbert,

  As promised, the key we have often spoken of is now in your possession since you have reached your 25th birthday. I hope by now you have forsworn your foolish ways and have decided to act like the mature man I have always hoped you would one day become.

  This key is symbolic – it is the key to your future and it will unlock your true character. It will open to you a choice between short-term greed and life-long treasure.

  You have always resented my wealth, at the same time hoping that it would one day become yours. But wealth without discipline is both meaningless and destructive. This key will give you the opportunity to demonstrate whether you have the personal discipline to manage part of my estate.

  Follow my instructions, rein in your impatience, and you will be satisfied with the result. Ignore what I now tell you, grab what you can in your usual greedy frenzy, and you will be sadly disappointed.

  I am dealing with this matter in this way because I will not be here by the time you turn 25. I trust that my faith in your ability to change will be justified. I wish you a fruitful and constructive life and I remain, your loving aunt,

  Harriette M. McC.

  I looked at the family and they looked at me. Jessica asked, “Can I see it?” I handed it to her and she examined it, commenting on the pretty handwriting. We discussed the next step for several days before I phoned the Post-Gazette and asked for the obituary desk. I got the name of the funeral home which had handled Mr. Marchand’s arrangements and called them. The funeral director informed me that Mr. Herbert Marchand had only one relative, a son also named Herbert who had worked in the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. Their information indicated that he had been killed in an industrial accident a month earlier. The director suspected that the loss of his son had contributed to Mr. Marchand’s death. I asked about Harriette M. McC. He said, “Yes, we list the deceased’s sister as Harriette Marchand McCartney. She died in 1974.” When I double checked, he assured me that Mr. Marchand had had no living relatives.

  “Well,” I said to anyone who was listening, “I guess that means the key belongs to us. Let’s go see what this one produces.”

  I had to go to several branches before I found a manager who recognized the key as belonging to his bank. Annabelle was with me this time. I fit the key into the safety deposit lock, removed the tray, which was quite heavy, and laid it on the pullout shelf. When I opened the top, we saw several kraft envelopes with button-and-string ties. There was a name neatly printed on the front of each envelope. Anna’s eyes danced as she pulled one of them out of the tray.

  “Can I open it?” she begged. “Please! I can’t wait.” I nodded. She undid the tie, carefully peered inside, then looked at me, her eyes wide. “It’s money!” She reached in and discovered a stack of hundred dollar bills about a quarter of an inch thick. She counted them carefully, brand new stiff bills that were hard to separate, then handed them to me and said, “Fifty of them. $5,000! Holy cow. We’re rich!”

  Grabbing another envelope from the tray, she opened it and found the same thing, $5,000 in hundred dollar bills. She let out a little high-pitched girlish squeal and asked, “What are we going to get with all this money?”

  I reminded her that there were names on all the envelopes, and we had to find out what that meant. When I lifted the rest of the envelopes out of the tray, I found underneath them a white envelope on which was written the name “Herbert.” I told Annabelle, “This probably contains the instructions she mentioned in the other letter. We’ll have to wait ‘til we get home and decide what we’re supposed to do with all this…stuff.” Anna squealed again, danced a little jig, and gave me a powerful hug. I had to admit, it was pretty exciting.

  The family gathered around the dining room table when we got home, and each one of them took one of the envelopes and opened it. I was amused to see everyone busily counting hundred dollar bills. We looked like a scene from one of those gangster films where the robbers are greedily counting their loot after a bank job.

  I said in a loud gangster voice, “Nobody leaves da room widdout bein’ frisked!” Then I added, “This is not our money…yet. Remember that. We have to read the instructions.” I opened the white envelope and read the letter to them.

  Dear Herbert,

  You are now in possession of $35,000, more money than you have ever seen at one time. I am entrusting it to you with the stipulation that you follow my instructions exactly. As I said in my previous letter, if you give in to greed and fail to do as I say, you will be sadly disappointed.

  The names on the envelopes are those of people with whom I worked in France during the late war. They are in need of help. You are now in a position to help them. I want you to deliver the seven envelopes to the people noted on each one, whose addresses are printed below. When you speak to each one, you will ask this question: ‘What is your number?’ Each one will give you a single digit. The
envelopes are marked in order from #1 through #7. It is essential that you visit these people in that order. If you do not, my plan will not work. When you have delivered all seven envelopes and collected all seven numbers, you will put the numbers in the sequence in which you obtained them, and then decide what your next move should be.

  Again, I trust you to behave like a mature adult in this enterprise. If you do, you will be satisfied with the results. If you do not, you will be sadly disappointed.

  Your loving aunt,

  Harriette M. McC.

  Joey laughed. “Wow! We have a real whodunit here! Cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “I feel bad for Herbert,” Audrey said. “It doesn’t sound like old Aunt Harriette had a very high opinion of him. I wonder what he did to get on her bad side. And how did she make all her money?”

  “Probably inherited it,” chimed in Jessica.

  I said, “Suppose each one of you writes down the address on your envelope. Who has #1?”

  “I do,” said Raymond.

  “OK, what’s the name?”

  “Lucy Allard.”

  “Here’s the address for #1,” I said. “It’s on Ayrshire Road in Monroeville.”

  Ray carefully wrote it down on the envelope. “But,” he protested, “are we just going to give all this money away? To people we don’t even know?”

  The expressions on the faces of the rest of them were asking the same question. “This is our money,” Anna added. “We have it in our hands right here. It would really help with my college fund. We could do all sorts of things with it.”

  “When’s the last time you had $35,000 all at one time?” Jess asked, giving me an intense look.