120 Blind Dates... And Other Short Stories

Locked

Grandfather's old desk, which stood in the middle of a library that contained a few thousand books, was locked when he passed away. The obvious problem was that only Grandfather had known where he had hidden the key. "If something's locked, there is always a good reason for it: You want to keep out the curious!" Grandfather himself had once explained.

But since he had been the last person to live in the house and the house and its furniture were now going to be sold by my father, we wanted to open that lock. Dad tried, but it was hopeless: The desk was too old. "I think we simply need to smash that drawer!" Dad exclaimed after a while as his failure to open the desk made him totally aggressive. 

I had an idea. "Perhaps he hid it in an obvious place. Did he have, like, a favourite book?" 

"Not really. All these books belonged to my great-grandfather. Or gave you ever seen him read one of these books?" Dad said. 

In the end, I convinced Dad to hire a locksmith. The young man had a hard time opening the drawer and said it had not been opened for some time. But then, he succeeded and left to give us some privacy. 

"You gotta be kidding me!" Dad said when he was finally able to open the drawer and realized that it contained nothing but a picture of our family that had been taken on a vacation ages ago. Everyone was smiling. I think that was how Grandfather wanted to remember us.