“Well, Grandma,” Mike muttered bitterly, getting up and walking towards the corner of the room. “Times don’t get much tougher than this.”
He rummaged through the boxes until he found the one with the Bible. He pulled it out and carried it back to the couch.
Then, he looked at the note for the first time since her funeral.
“Open it when it’s hard,” he read aloud softly. “You silly, wonderful old lady. I loved you, and you were so infuriatingly stubborn.”
He shook his head, his voice breaking as he finally opened the Bible.
The leather cover was cracked and dry, a testament to years of use before Grace had passed it on to him. As he started flipping through the pages, something odd caught his eye.
It seemed like there was something hidden between the pages. Curious, Mike turned one page, and what he saw made him freeze in his tracks.
Two crisp $100 bills stared back at him.
He turned another page. More bills. Page after page, hundreds of dollars spilled out of the Bible. Eventually, Mike realized his grandmother had hidden thousands of dollars within its pages.
Mike’s hands trembled as he spread the money out on his bed. Tears streamed down his face.
“Oh God, Grandma,” he whispered, looking up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep this a secret?”
As he sobbed, a flood of memories came rushing back.
He thought about Grace’s gentle touch, her warm smile, and her voice singing hymns on Sunday mornings. He remembered how she used to read Bible verses to him when he was a child and how he would grumble about it as a teenager. He thought about their fight and the years he had spent resenting her.
“I’m sorry, Grandma,” he choked out. “I’m so, so sorry.”
The money was more than sufficient to cover his mother’s treatment. Mike gathered the bills and rushed to Kaila’s room at the hospital.
Kaila’s room was quiet, save for the steady beeping of machines and the soft hum of fluorescent lights. She turned her head slowly as Mike burst in, his face flushed with excitement.
“Mike?” she murmured, startled. “What’s going on?”
He sank into the chair beside her bed, clutching her hand tightly. “Mom, you won’t believe this,” he said, grinning through his tears. “Grandma saved us.”
“Her Bible – it wasn’t just a Bible. She… she hid money in it. Thousands of dollars, Mom!”
Kaila’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Thousands of dollars?”