The Secrets of The Arabian Nights

When my husband came into the study yesterday and sat down (which he hardly ever does and never for very long), I immediately prepared myself to talk about the VISA bill as I was just then closing the purchase confirmation screen for some really cool Frye boots (“Just getting a jump start on Christmas shopping, Honey.”). He jumped up when something caught his eye.

As he walked past me to the far corner of the room, his face changed immediately revealing an almost childlike softness. One I hadn’t seen in a while; a peacefulness I couldn’t help but watch.

“I’m trying to recall the last time I’ve seen this.” Smiling, he turned to show me The Arabian Nights. “I don’t even remember how old I was when he gave me it. ”

 “I didn’t know it was in here either,” I said. It’s been in every room in the house at some point.

The cracked, blue spine barely held the cover on or the yellowed pages in. Carefully opening it to the flyleaf, his fingers lightly touched the faded words written in pencil.

"...Christmas 1914..."

 He turned a few pages and I knew exactly why he started to laugh.

 “What’s in there now?” I asked.

“A rock hard pack of gum and a two dollar bill.”

“I wonder whose?”

Shortly after his grandfather gave it to him, my husband created a secret vault (thinking no one would suspect) by carving out its center. Calling it his “safe”, he stored all his valuable belongings in it.  Money, candy, collectibles or anything else he wanted to hide from his older brother who had two nasty habits. Ransacking and Tormenting.

 No one ever discovered his hiding spot, he thought. Accept his mother, although he didn't know it at the time. And she kept his secret.

I remember the moment our kids discovered The Arabian Nights on a bookshelf and came running into the kitchen.

“Look, look! There’s a hole in this book!”

“That’s Daddy’s book. Go ask him about it.”

I watched as two sets of wide-eyed baby blues lit up in amazement, at possibilities and with pride at their Daddy’s cleverness. I could almost see their little wheels spinning with delight.

“How did you do it?”

“What did you hide in there?”

“Was Nano mad you at you for ruining the book?”

But the most important question of all?

“Did Uncle George ever find it?”

"Nope. He never did."

From the moment my husband lifted his old, dusty book from an even dustier shelf in the far corner of a room, generations worth of memories flashed past. There were years spent reading it’s pages, of course, but many, many more hiding things inside its covers. It shows it's age.

So he placed it right back where he found it because someone might return to collect its contents. Or the next generation will find it.

It’s always held someone’s treasures. 

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