Can't Wait to Get to Heaven

The Family Bible

2:18 PM

The winter after Elner died was one of the coldest ones on record, and Mr. Rudolf called and told Norma the bad news. Norma had grown up in what was still considered the prettiest house in Elmwood Springs. Because Norma’s father had been a banker, Ida had insisted he build a house to reflect his standing in the community and had hired an architect from Kansas City to build them a large redbrick bungalow, but after Norma’s father died and Ida moved to Poplar Springs, Ida donated the house to the local garden club for safekeeping. Ida told a disappointed Norma, who really would have liked to have the house not for herself and Macky but for Linda, that giving the house to the garden club was the only way she could ensure the future of her English boxwoods. After all these years, the house and the gardens were still there, including her mother’s “ugly English boxwoods,” as they were referred to privately by Norma and her father. Growing up, there had been times when both she and her father had suspected that her mother had cared more for her English boxwoods than she had for them. But unfortunately the boxwoods were now no more. That January freeze had killed them and they all had to be dug up and replaced with a much lesser plant, the dreaded pittosporum, as her mother called it. Norma thought that it was a good thing her mother was not still alive, because she would have died anyway, if she knew.

A few days later Norma heard a knock on the door. When she opened it, there stood Mr. Rudolf, the head gardener for the garden club. He said, “Mrs. Warren, the boys were digging around in the garden and they found this. We opened it up and I think it might have belonged to your mother, so I wanted to bring it over.” He tipped his hat and handed her a large plastic Tupperware container; inside, she could see still half wrapped in cotton and Saran wrap a large black Bible. Norma thanked him and went to the living room and sat down and opened it. It was the old Nuckle Knott family Bible that had belonged to her grandparents. Norma’s hands were shaking as she opened it and saw the names listed.

KNOTT

Henry Clay born Nov. 9, 1883 died 1942

Nancy Nuckle born July 18, 1881 died 1919

CHILDREN

Elner Jane born July 28, 1910

Gerta Marie born March 11, 1912

Ida Mae born May 22, 19

Her mother’s birth year had been scratched out completely, of course, and so the exact date of her mother’s birth had followed her to her grave, and beyond. But now Norma knew that Aunt Elner had lived to be almost ninety-six years old. “Good Lord,” Norma thought, with that kind of longevity in her family, she was not too old to start a new career after all.

However, as it so happened, the old Nuckle Knott family Bible was not the only thing that had been buried away by one of the sisters. Elner Shimfissle had a secret as well, and after she died, there was only one person on earth left who knew exactly what it was, where it was, and what had happened.