when a man named Vincent wanted to discover a secret he concocted a plan to deceive his aging mother Laura who was also in poor health pretending to be his own deceased father Vincent convinced his own mother to marry him but when the wedding day came something shocking happened.
Something that will leave your mouth hung wide open in disbelief Laura had first met her husband Joseph when they were only very young no more than five years old their families lived in a small mining town and the two children grew up together becoming good friends over the years they went through school together and eventually started dating and things eventually got serious with Joseph proposing to Laura on the day of her 19th birthday.
Laura gladly accepted and less than six months later they were married at the local church with both of their families in attendance it really was a match made in heaven to earn a living Joseph went to work down in the mines it was a dangerous job and the hours were long conditions were bad and there had been countless injuries and even deaths because of how old the mines were and how deep they had dealt collapses were becoming more and more common with miners being trapped behind or even underneath tons of rubble and rocks but Joseph loved the work they were mining gold one of the most precious and valuable medals in the world from small specs to larger blocks there was plenty of gold to be blasted and docked from the vast and dangerous mines carved into the foot of a mountain.
Joseph earned the good living through mining but there was one problem Laura hated to see him leave to go to work she constantly worried that he would end up getting himself injured or worse she didn’t know how she’d cope without him if anything happened Joseph had quite the scare one day at work when a small Quake dislodged some Boulders from the ceiling of the mine luckily no one was killed but many people did receive fairly extensive injuries Joseph was relatively lucky receiving only a broken leg during the rockfall he was rushed to the hospital.
where his leg was placed in a cast he was instructed not to return to work until the bones had healed that process would take several months Laura was glad to have him home more but Joseph wasn’t the type of person to stay still for too long after several days he grew bored with the rest and inactivity and used the crotch to hobble out into the garden there he started tending to the plants cutting the grass and even trimming the bushes and the big tree that sat at the end of the property as he guarded he noticed some interesting.
looking rocks he bent down to look closer and his eyes went wide with shock he couldn’t even believe what he was seeing to anyone else the Rocks would look like any other average Rock but to Joseph a man who had spent several several years down in the mines he knew that these rocks were only formed when gold was around he called for Laura who came running together they dug a large hole in the garden and much to their shock they found three football-sized chunks of gold they Shone and glittered and the pair couldn’t believe their luck but they knew that if anyone else discovered there was gold under their home.
Their house would be destroyed so the ground could be mined so Laura and Joseph instead buried the three valuable chunks of gold at the base of the big tree in their Garden for safe keeping years passed and they put the horde of gold to the backs of their minds.
Laura fell pregnant while she was 22 and eventually gave birth to a beautiful little boy that they named Vincent they raised them in the same house that they had always lived in and had a happy life together but time never relents and soon enough Vincent was a 40 year old man and his mother and father were were in their 60s and suddenly very old and frail over the years Vincent had always heard his mother and father joke about the gold in the garden but he had never located it neither as a child nor as an adult.
when Joseph got ill and was laying on his deathbed Winston took the opportunity to ask the old man about it Joseph simply laughed and said that they had made the story up Vincent didn’t believe him but his father was only moments from dying and he didn’t want to push the subject but Winston would never let the thought leave his mind there must have been gold somewhere the entire town was a mining town so it made sense that his mother and father would have hidden away some gold for a rainy day that gold could belong to him now though Vincent could do whatever he wanted with it greed started to Cloud his mind once Joseph had died it was down to Vincent to look after his mother Laura.
He cared for and he helped her with her daily tasks but he grew more and more infatuated and obsessed with the secret gold hidden in the garden he knew what was there somewhere sadly though Laura started to suffer from dementia her memories weren’t what they used to be and she frequently forgot things Vincent asked her one day about the gold and she confirmed it to be true .
Vincent couldn’t believe his ears asking his Lucid Mother where it was but she simply looked at her son and said that the only person would reveal the answer would be her husband and he was dead now frustrated Vincent began to formulate a plan his lust for the wealth and power that such a gold horde would bring started to take over his mind so he came up with a devious and deceitful plan.
He waited until his mother’s symptoms were bad and he dressed up as his father the two did look very similar he went up to Laura and asked her to marry him still pretending to be Joseph Laura looked confused but agreed the next day Vincent went to see the priest to organize a wedding for the very next week.
Before too long the big day right and in order to preserve his true identity Vincent made sure that no one found out about the marriage Vincent dressed up as his deceased father arrived at the church and helped walk his elderly and Confused mother in only the priest was present he asked that Vincent removed his hat before the ceremony commenced which he did he just wanted this whole thing over and done with as quickly as possible but suddenly something shocking happened that shook poor Laura to her core.
As Vincent removed his hat Laura smiled at the man she believed to be Joseph but as quickly as you would switch on a light bulb her symptoms dramatically lessened and memory suddenly came back to her she screamed when she realized that the man stood before her at the altar wasn’t her beloved Joseph but their son Vincent panicked she asked the priest why he was marrying her to her own son?
The confused priest became angry and cast Vincent from the church he had not only tricked the priest but he had deceived his own mother for personal gain Vincent just wanted to marry her so she would reveal the location of the gold Laura was heartbroken and told her son to leave and never come back but just before the man left he looked her in the eye and angrily asked where the gold was to which she replied that she couldn’t remember.
Vincent left and he never returned it’s truly a sad ending and it’s almost a mercy that Laura was suffering from dementia as she was often able to forget about the horrific event and how badly her son had treated her and used her with the help of her caretakers and Friends Laura made sure that she visited Joseph’s grave every day from that point onward sometimes she remembered him sometimes she didn’t and the worser condition became the number of days that she remembered who he was became less and less but strangely enough despite her old age advancing illness the exact location of the huge chunks of gold still remained firmly in her head.
She had lied when she said she couldn’t remember she could very clearly that was something that Laura never forgot and it was a secret that she would be happy to take her to the Grave forever and Joseph’s little secrets
