…your father’s war medals and every letter he ever wrote to your mother from Korea.”
The antique dealer, Mr. Brooks, had refused to buy the box. He recognized my father’s name from the appraisal paperwork. He’d kept it in his safe and called me as soon as he got my photographs.
“Some things shouldn’t be sold,” he said, handing it to me. “Especially by people who don’t own them.”
Inside were my father’s Purple Heart, his Bronze Star and two hundred letters tied with faded ribbon. I’d never known they existed. My mother must have hidden the box in the cabinet behind the figurines.
My mother’s porcelain collection had been sold to a different dealer for a third of its value. With Mr. Brooks’s help, the police tracked it down. That dealer returned every piece once he learned they’d been stolen.
My daughter-in-law, Kim, was charged with theft. My son, Joe, said he hadn’t known what she was doing until he watched the video. He’d meant to send it to her, to ask what on earth she was doing.
I read my father’s letters that winter, one every night. In one of them, he wrote, “When I get home, I’m going to buy you something beautiful to keep in a glass cabinet.” I think that’s where the figurines came from.
They’re back in their cabinet now. The box sits on the shelf beneath them. The cabinet has a new lock, and I keep the only key.
