Bank Owned by J. Joseph Wright Read Free Book Online Page A

genuine feeling of compassion and, most of all, of love.
     
    The crib had blended in with the satiny, soft wall coverings, which is why she must not have seen it right away. When she did, though, she rushed to its side, wasting not a second. She didn’t know why she was disappointed to discover only a bundle of cotton blankets, clean and neat. To find a baby in such a state of abandonment would have meant some horrible evil was afoot. So it came as a relief nothing was in the bassinet. Still, the laughter she’d heard seemed authentic, so genuinely joyous. Joyous. That’s what she felt as she took another mental inventory of what only could be described as a nursery. A wonderfully and thoughtfully arraigned and stocked child’s room, designed with love in mind. Pure. Unconditional.
     
    After the original shock of finding such a meticulously outfitted space, the reality of the situation began to wear down her euphoria. How could such a room exist, deep below their house? And why would someone build this place, in such a subterranean dungeon, with such a thorough eye for detail and obvious care? Though it didn’t look like a dungeon. It looked like any other room. Finished walls, soft carpet, whimsical paint with a rainbow and bunnies and a sunny spring scene. The only things missing were windows, a view of the outside world.
     
    She wondered if, in all of his sneaking around when she was asleep, Brian had built this room. It was just the sort of thing he would do. Maybe that was why he was acting so distant lately. Maybe he was doing that on purpose, just to throw her off. However, she began to see signs of age. Tattered and yellowed paper in the Doctor Seuss books, and heavy dust on the stuffed animals. This place had been here a long time. Way before she and Brian had moved in. She decided to cast aside questions and motives. Far be it for her to question, or even criticize. One truth demanded to be heard above all others, and that was whoever built this room, they loved a child very, very much.
     
    That residual compassion moved her to tears for the second time that day. Suddenly she wasn’t so depressed about the negative pregnancy test. They’d make another baby. And another, and another. These were her thoughts as she hurried up the rickety staircase again. So excited was she that the absence of handrails, and light for that matter, phased her not even a little.
     
    “Brian! BRIAN!” she ran up to the real basement, or what she’d thought was the real basement. She kept running and shouting for her husband, desperate for him to come see.
     
    He grumbled when she found him, lumped in bed, a face sticking out of the sheets. He was cold, even in the Indian summer they were having, and didn’t want to get out of bed. Angie’s persistence, though, along with her mention of the room beneath the cellar, got him up.
     
    “What do you mean you went down there? You moved the shelves and opened that door? The hidden door?”
     
    “Yes, yes!” she took his hand and had to drag him. It didn’t take much more cajoling after that, though. After that, he dominated the conversation.
     
    “So you saw what was in there?” he kept asking her. “You know what’s down there?”
     
    “I saw it, Brian!” she was in the lead as they rushed down to the basement “I saw it all…it’s so wonderful!”
     
    “Wonderful?” his head began to spin. “You really think so? You think it’s wonderful?”
     
    She stopped before they reached the hidden door. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
     
    He felt dirty all of the sudden, like he needed to scrub himself with Comet. “You…something’s wrong with you…you’re sick.”
     
    “Sick? What do you mean?” she couldn’t understand what he was talking about. She waited for a response, which Brian didn’t want to contribute, so she gave him a confused shrug and descended, quickly and decisively, into the darkness.
     
    “Angie! Wait!” he went after her. The