I turned the first jar upside down.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then I saw it.
Something was attached to the underside of the lid.
A small piece of paper.
It had been folded several times and secured with old tape.
The tape had turned brown.
I leaned closer.
My first thought was that Ruth had left a recipe.
She was always writing things down.
Measurements.
Dates.
The number of eggs collected from the chickens.
But this paper looked different.
It was folded too carefully.
I reached for the small scissors I kept in the basement drawer.
My fingers weren't steady.
I cut through the tape without damaging the paper.
Then I unfolded it.
There were several lines of printed information.
A bank name.
A registration number.
A date.
December 1985.
I read the document twice.
It was a federal savings bond.
Series EE.
I stared at the name printed on it.
Linda Haddon.
My name.
I sat down.
The basement was cold, and the old heating pipes made a clicking sound above me.
I didn't move.
I looked at the bond again.
It had been issued in the year I married Daniel.
The year Ruth gave me the first jar of plum jam.
The year Carol laughed about putting me on the family jam list.
I held the paper closer to the light.
There was no mistake.
It belonged to me.
I turned it over.
The back contained the usual information and another printed date.
I couldn't understand why Ruth had hidden it inside an empty jam jar.
Then I remembered something.
The jar had been in my basement for forty years.
I had washed it.
Dried it.
Put it on the shelf.
And never once thought to inspect the underside of the lid.
I looked toward the other jars.
Thirty-eight more.
My heart began beating faster.
I reached for number two.
The lid came off easily.
I turned it over.
There it was.
Another folded paper.
I carefully removed it.
Another federal savings bond.
Again, the same bank.
Again, my name.
The date was December 1986.
I looked at the number painted on the lid.
Two.
Then at the date on the bond.
Two.
I didn't need anyone to explain the connection.
I reached for jar number three.
The same thing.
A bond.
My name.
The following December.
I stopped breathing normally.
For years, I had believed those jars were simple homemade gifts.
I had thought Ruth was giving me something inexpensive because she didn't know what else to give her son's wife.
But she had been putting something inside them.
Something I had never seen.
I moved faster.
Number four.
Number five.
Number six.
Every lid held another document.
I laid them carefully on the worktable.
I didn't stack them.
I didn't want the old paper to tear.
My hands were beginning to ache.
Not from the cold.
From the effort of trying to understand what I was seeing.
At number seven, I found a small strip of paper stuck to the tape.
It had a date written in Ruth's handwriting.
I recognized her narrow letters.
She had written the year again.
Nothing more.
I continued.
Number eight.
Number nine.
Number ten.
The bond inside number ten had been folded into a smaller square.
I remembered that Christmas.
Carol had received the gold watch.
Jeanette had complained about the plum flavor.
I had carried my jar home and placed it on the basement shelf.
All the while, a savings bond had been hidden beneath the lid.
I put the tenth bond beside the others.
Then I stopped.
I needed to sit down.
There were ten documents in front of me.
Ten Christmas gifts.
Ten years of something Ruth had quietly prepared.
I looked at the dates.
They were consecutive.
There were no missing years.
I thought about Carol and Jeanette.
I thought about their velvet boxes.
I thought about how they had laughed at the jam.
And I felt ashamed.
Not of the jam.
Of myself.
I had allowed their jokes to make me feel small.
I had never considered that Ruth might have been doing something they couldn't see.
I reached for the next jar.
Number eleven.
Another bond.
Number twelve.
Another.
The pattern continued.
By the time I reached number fifteen, I had stopped wondering whether the first few were unusual.
They weren't.
Ruth had planned this.
She had planned it for years.
I looked at the clock on the basement wall.
It was nearly midnight.
I should have gone upstairs.
Instead, I kept working.
The jars were lined along the table.
The papers were arranged in numerical order.
Every time I removed another bond, I checked the date.
Every time, it matched the painted number.
There was something almost frightening about the consistency.
Ruth had never missed a Christmas.
And apparently, she had never missed a year of saving for me either.
When I reached number twenty, I stopped again.
Halfway.
Twenty Christmases.
Twenty bonds.
I rubbed my eyes.
I wasn't crying yet.
I was too busy trying to understand the scale of what she had done.
I had never asked Ruth for money.
I had never expected an inheritance.
I had never even imagined she might consider me when making financial arrangements.
But there were twenty documents with my name on them.
And thirty-nine jars waiting to be checked.
I looked at the remaining shelf.
Then I took a slow breath.
I had to finish.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Thirty-Nine Lids, Thirty-Nine Documents, and a Secret Ruth Had Managed to Keep Even From Her Own Daughters
For Forty Christmases, I Thought I Was the Only One Who Didn’t Understand What Ruth Was Giving Me
Part 5 of 20
