“Allen!” Meg’s scream tumbled into the living room where I was ensconced in my. recliner.

I bolted to my feet and raced to the staircase as fast as my old legs would let me.

“Meg, you okay?”

“Yes, but get up here. You gotta see this.”

I grasped the bannister and pulled myself up the twenty odd carpeted stairs into what had once been our daughter’s bedroom.

The square room with its single window was a dormer Meg had spent much of the week renovating into an art studio. She stood smiling under its sloping roof.

“Come here,” she beckoned.

She’s short. I’m not. I had to bend a bit or I’d have hit the light fixture. I joined her by the window where the late afternoon sun cast a sultry beam on her cupped hands. She held what looked like a small coffee can.

Meg handed it to me. “Isn’t that something?” she cooed.

Peering at it closely, I curled my fingers around the tall thin canister.

“Too small for coffee, and I think it’s made of tin,” I said.

“Yes, tin and it held Nestle’s cocoa. Look at the pretty Four Season pictures. Do you remember these tins from when we were teenagers?”

I looked more closely. “This can’s not that old. It looks new. Where’d you find it?”

She pointed to a wall across from the window where a mirror once hung.

“I was trying to patch a crack, but the wall just crumbled. See that hole? This was tucked inside where two studs come together.”

Investigating, I saw where it had lain in a crater of dust. I looked at the canister anew.

“You looked inside it?” I asked.

When Meg shook her head, plaster dust rained upon my shoes.

“No, I wanted to share the experience. I bet there’s something precious inside. Open it.”

Meg’s eyes gleamed as she clasped her small hands. “Hurry!” she demanded.

I couldn’t. The top was sealed. I pulled a small Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and worked on the lid till it popped off. I tipped the can and a jumble of stuff fell into my hand.

I stared. So did Meg.

In my hand was a small silver locket, a small track meet medal, a photograph of a pretty teenager, and a hand-written index card explaining the contents.

I read the card aloud:

I am Marilyn Marosi (16) and this is my time capsule. Today is August 1, 1975. Mom and Dad just had this dormer built. When it’s finished, it will be my bedroom. The photograph is me. The locket was given to me by my first boyfriend. We broke up a month ago and keeping it would only make me cry. I won the medal last spring in Track. I got lucky. I hope someone finds this capsule before this house is torn down.

She signed her name.

I looked up to find Meg crying. She’s more sentimental than I am, but . . .

She began talking before I could ask any question.

“We bought the house from the Linda Marosi in 1985. Linda told me she was selling because she did not want to live alone. She was already a widow and her daughter Marilyn had recently died in a car crash.”

I scanned the note again. “Marilyn was in her twenties when she died. Do you think she was still living at home?”

“I got that impression,” Meg replied. She brushed tears off her dusty cheeks.

I stuffed everything back into the canister and put the lid back on.

“It’s a nice keepsake, but what should we do with this?” I asked. “Put it on the mantle? Give it to Stephanie who lived in this room for what, ten or twelve years?”

“Let me call Linda,” Meg said. “She’s still in my women’s club though she seldom attends meetings. She paints too, and I’m sure she’d like to see my new studio.”

#

On a pretty day in September, a good two weeks after the discovery of the canister, Linda Marosi knocked on our front door. I hadn’t seen her in years and hardly recognized her. She wasn’t much taller than Meg, slim to the point of looking frail, and a bit bashful when I opened the door.

“Allen?” she said as she stepped in. She wore a blue pantsuit and carried a pot of yellow mums.

I nodded as Meg stepped around me to give her a hug.

“Linda, oh, these are lovely. Thank you. They’re going to go right there next to the mailbox on the porch. Come back out. Do you like the new swing? Allen built it.”

Babbling, the ladies went back out, came back in, and then disappeared upstairs where they stayed for quite awhile. When they came back downstairs, both women were beaming.

“That skylight makes all the difference, Meg. You’ll love painting up there now.”

The skylight had been my idea, so I was smiling now, too.

Meg brought her into the living room where I stood hands in pockets by my chair.

“Allen has a surprise for you on his end table.” Meg beckoned me to show it to her.

I did, but Meg explained how and where it was discovered.

Linda stared at the canister like a pole-axed steer. When I opened the lid and poured out the contents into her hands, she sniffled then sobbed when she saw her daughter’s photo.

Meg took Linda by the elbow and led her to the couch.

“Marilyn was some girl it seems,” Meg smiled. “A love life, a track star, and a new bedroom she seemed to like.”

Linda gave Meg and me a dim smile. “She loved that room. Stayed in it, with me, long after college. And that boy who gave her the locket, Teddy Winfield, won her back. They were sweethearts until . . . until . . .”

More tears, but she left smiling late that afternoon, her treasure cradled in one arm.