Hannah's Key

The first time Hannah saw Grandpa Kendall dead, he was in a long wooden box. Her mother told her it was a coffin, but Hannah saw it as the box that had taken her Grandpa away from her.

Grandpa’s eyes were closed, but Hannah knew what they would look like open. Grey glassy orbs staring, unseeing, at the scream coloured church roof.

Laugh lines created eerie shadows on his peaceful face. Hannah swore she saw him breathe.

Grandpa’s hands, bony and arthritic, rested on his chest. Hannah’s imagination tried to come up with a word to describe Grandpa Kendall, but came up with only one ugly word: Dead.

But, Hannah decided, there was a certain amount of happiness on her grandfather’s face, hidden deep below the peaceful stillness that shaped and coloured his features. Maybe Grandpa Kendall was happy that he was finally with Grandma Mary.

Hannah adjusted her glasses. Like her grandfather, she had been born with poor eyesight, and was constantly buying new glasses, to replace the ones she either broken or lost. The poor quality glasses she wore today were bought from the local supermarket. If Hannah bought all her glasses from the optometrist, she would be broke.

Around the church, people were communicating solemnly, a dull murmur all that could be heard. A slide show of Grandpa Kendall’s photos was playing, accompanied by slow piano music. There a one photo of Grandpa Kendall and Grandma Mary, on their wedding day. The joy on her grandfather’s face told Hannah they would enjoy being together, watching down from heaven.

Hannah looked sorrowfully back at Grandpa Kendall, who still lay in the coffin. They hadn’t moved him. Hannah noticed, for the first time, that he had his reading glasses. She looked closer, realizing that these weren’t his normal reading glasses.

Grandpa Kendall owned an enormous library, which consumed his tiny house. Hannah had often been told that she had inherited her grandfather’s love of reading, as well as bad eyesight. She had no doubt that this was true. Mystery, Romance, fantasy, Fiction, Non Fiction, Grandpa Kendall had read them all.

But where were his usual reading glasses, the grey frames with the golden ‘K’ on the side?

A hand slid onto Hannah’s shoulder, a comforting, smooth hand, white as marble.

“Are you alright, Hannah?” Hannah’s mother asked comfortingly.

Hannah nodded, her face grim. “I just wish….” She paused, lost for words. She felt as if something big was trying to for its way down her throat. Her mother made a comforting noise and hugged Hannah close, sighing.

Hannah’s mother looked over at the buffet table, where two sour looking teenage girls sat, chewing bitterly on sausage rolls.

“What’s wrong with them?” Hannah asked sharply. She never got on with her cousins.

Her mother sighed again. “I think your cousins were expecting a little more inheritance.”

Hannah nodded. “That sounds like them.”

“You got something, by the way.” Her mother smiled. She reached into her pocked, and brought out a small white package.

Hannah took it, feeling the jealous stares of her cousins boring into the back of her head. She opened the package, and grey glasses tumbled into her hand.

Hannah’s eyes widened. “Grandpa’s reading glasses!”

“There’s more.”

Hannah looked at her mother in shock, and then reached into the package again. She found something cold and hard.

Hannah brought it out, and instantly knew what it was. “The key to Grandpa’s library!” She all but squealed.

She turned to her grandfather’s still body, tears in her eyes.

Grandpa must have known. The cousins would have sold all the books if they’d gotten their hands on the library. So too would most of the family, who couldn’t understand Grandpa Kendall’s love of reading. Hannah knew she would read all the books.

One day, she knew she would be the one in the coffin, and her grandchild would be the one to open the white package and find the key. Then they would own the library, like she did now.

Hannah took off her cheap supermarket glasses and replaced them with her grandfathers spectacles, tucking the key into her pocket, and walked off to join the rest of her family.