Carol's secret strongbox

Several months after Carol's death, I received a letter from our bank informing me that Carol had taken out a safe deposit box (I call it a strongbox) there. This was news to me. She had never mentioned it to me (that I recall). I called and learned that it was at our local branch a half a mile from our house, and that she was the only owner listed. So in order to see what was in the box, I had to await the guidance of our estate lawyer Garry through the snail-paced probate process, which was going to take an unspecified number of months.

Two weeks ago, Garry emailed me that he finally had the court order, a single page with a notary's embossed stamp at the bottom. He emailed me an image (actually useless without the stamp), and a few days later I got the real McCoy by snailmail. I was preparing to fly to Alabama to be with my family for a week, so I made the appointment with the bank for after I got back. (Their scheduling website was broken, so I had to do this three separate times.)

I did happen to go to the bank and meet an energetic young guy named Hunt, who was the new branch manager, while I was getting $5 bills with which to tip the wheelchair people at the airport. I told him that I didn't think I had the key to the strongbox. He told me that they would have to arrange for a locksmith to drill out the lock, and that accessing the box would be at least a two-day process.

A friend asked me if I could guess where the key was. I did, and I found two keys there. They were in a beautiful wooden jewelry box with a stained burl pattern, like the ones in beautiful hardwood pipes, which I had given Carol as a gift on some special day. Hunt had told me that I would also need an original copy of the death certificate (I have thirty, half with the wrong birthdate) and the original court order to proceed.

The day before yesterday I got a call on my landline (usually spam). The voice on the other end said "Hello, this is Juan from the bank calling on a recorded line. Could I speak with Mr. Koh?" I hesitated, trying to decide whether to hang up on him, then said "This is he." He continued. "I have an appointment with you in forty-five minutes. Could you tell me what you are hoping to accomplish during that appointment?"

I recounted my conversations with Hunt, and explained that I had found the keys, and had the documents required. "Wonderful! Would you like to come in early?" "Sure!" "I'll see you at quarter of..." We got off the phone.

I made a phone call to the stonecutter to tell him a ridiculous story and was a little too chatty, and had to pour my coffee into the Corkcicle travel cup that our neighbor Mia had gifted me for my winter travels to the cemetery. I slipped into my Berks, slid my Samsonite fabric laptop case (without the laptop in it) over my head, and drove Carol's Camry hybrid to the bank, getting there in two minutes, just in time for the appointment.

Juan turned out to be a personable 25 year-old young man originally from Venezuela. He multitasked easily, pausing to see the obligatory photos of Carol, Ava, and the whole family, complete with detailed explanations. He got the keys from me and disappeared for five minutes to make sure they worked. When he returned he said that he would have to wait for the go-ahead from the main office, and that he would call me tomorrow when he had gotten it. I gave him a hearty handshake, and also one to Hunt who I saw on the way out. It was off to Wellesley for tennis.

The next day I left a voicemail for Juan late in the morning. He answered it a few hours later. "It's all set! Come in anytime and we can get you into the box."

The weather forecast for today said rain, and I counted on tennis being cancelled. But the skies miraculously cleared, and Chuck texted me that tennis was on. I rearranged the entries in my phone and headed to Chuck-land. "I thought you were going to give me a break from your verbosity today!" he said when he saw me. "No such luck, man!" I replied congenially. I joined him and John and hit in intermittent bursts over the next eighty minutes or so. It was hot and humid, and we spent an ample amount of time hydrating and gabbing. Although Chuck called me verbose, we both know that he enjoys talking as much as I do. He tells me that I play better when I shut up. "Yeah but I don't have as much fun!" "Well we do..."

At 110pm Chuck and John packed up their Wilson bags (we all have Wilson bags) and took off. I packed up my stuff deliberately, stalling in case Carol was sending me any more butterflies or animals. (She's been sending a steady stream of playmates for me.) Surprisingly, none materialized, so I trudged back to her car and tossed my stuff into the trunk. Off to the bank.

On the way I realized that I was hungry, and, while talking with a friend on the phone, pulled into the Prime Deli on South St. at Brandeis. My plan was to get a Romanian pastrami sandwich, but when I saw a Reuben on their wall menu I amended my order to a Romanian pastrami Reuben in Carol's honor. (There is an infamous story among Carol's co-workers about a Reuben sandwich.) I got it with mustard and cheese on a soft bulkie roll. I also got two bottles of Pure Leaf "Arnold Palmer" (half lemonade half tea).

Having stalled until almost three (the bank closes at four), I made my way there. When I got there Juan was finishing up with one masked couple but there was another masked couple waiting for him. I saw Hunt. At first he said I would have to wait for Juan, but then he jiggered things around so that a sweet woman named Vania could help me. (I had met her the day before triaging clients with her iPad.) She asked me for my license and debit card. I made a lame joke and she smiled. She asked me for Carol's social security number. "Vania, I gave all this stuff to Juan yesterday" I said. "I'm sorry, we just need to verify you again today."

Finally Hunt took me into the back and asked me for one of the keys. The vault was reminiscent of Fort Knox, or the opening scene of John Badham's Wargames (starring Matthew Broderick) where two guys guarding a nuke get a call on the hotline from the White House, and one of them pulls a gun on the other when he's hesitant to enter the last digits of the launch code. Hunt hadn't seen the movie.

The key didn't work. He asked for other one. That one didn't work either. "Give me a sec" he said and disappeared with the key. He returned with a different box number.

Amazingly, the boxes aren't arranged in any discernable sequence. Adjacent numbers are adjacent to one another, but the pattern is serpentine, with unexpected breaks. It took us a few minutes to find the new box. I found it first. Hunt tried the key. It worked. He pulled out the long metal box and handed it to me, pointing to the small room (actually a large booth) across the hall. "Do you want a few minutes?" "Depends on what I find in the box" I said. "If it's a million bucks I may need time to count it." "Just ring the bell when you're done."

****

I sat down and put the box on the counter in front of me. I took a deep breath. "Okay, honey, what was it that you wanted to hide from me?" I thought. I knew it wasn't the U.S. savings bonds that she had gotten from her mom after we got married. MomAnne had made half of them out to Carol Mastromauro Koh based on Carol's short-lived plan to take my name. She had even teased me with towels monogrammed CMK. Finally she kept her eleven-letter family name, meaning that whenever she made a dinner reservation she had to again spend two minutes spelling it out: "M-A-S-, T-R-O-, M-A-U-R-O". Even in those situations she refused to just say "KOH". Although to be fair, I always have to say "K as in Kangaroo- O- H". So to each their own...

I hadn't seen our engagement ring in several years. My mom's aunt had gifted us the small but elegant diamond ring from her Oriental gift store when she realized that we didn't have one of our own, an hour before our Sunday afternoon engagement party in New Haven thirty-five years ago. We were actually more emotionally attached to the lovely small round opal that I gave Carol before that (it's her birthstone), but she never took it off her finger even when doing the dishes, so it lost its beautiful luster. I replaced it with an ovoid one which was almost as sweet in its own way. She took it off in the kitchen but kept it on at night.

So, in short, I had no idea what to expect when I opened Carol's strongbox. I figured out how to undo the latch and pried the box open.

It was empty. So, for probably over three decades, my frugal wife had paid monthly fees to our bank to hide from me: nothing. I slumped back in the chair and took a few more breaths. I checked my phone and read two meaningless messages. Then I remembered that Hunt was trying to get Vania home on time. I rang the bell.

When Hunt came I showed him the empty box. "My wife and I had no secrets from each other." He nodded. "Come back tomorrow and we'll close out the account." The next day, he told me that the strongbox account had probably come as a freebie when we had opened one of our several accounts there.

When Carol and I had gotten married thirty-five years previously after five eventful years together, we shared all of our secrets until there was no more to tell (except the ones we were keeping from ourselves...). I told her about my past loves, and she told me about David P., with whom she had traveled the world. With the table cleared, we embarked onto the adventure of our next four decades together.

Carol and I had no secrets from each other. We opened our hearts to each other. When I opened her secret strongbox it was empty. Again, she was reminding me of the breadth and depth of her love for me.

I didn't need to be reminded.

Thanks for reading, friends.