Fathers and Sons

Whit and his brother-in-law Willie are packed for a father-son fishing trip, but Jason Whittaker calls to say he cannot come. He is signing the papers for a new warehouse and wants to start clearing out the crowded storage room at his antique shop. Whit reminds him that he moved back to Odyssey to slow down, yet he is busier than ever. Jason answers with one of Whit's own sayings about never putting off until tomorrow what can be done today, and Whit sighs, "I hate it when you quote me back to me."

At the shop, a customer arrives looking for a music box from the estate of Balthazar Tolliver, which was brought in years ago after Balthazar died. The visitor introduces himself as James, Balthazar's son. Jason checks the records: most of the furniture has been sold, including a roll-top desk that Whit himself bought, but no music box was ever listed. James then shows Jason what he found among his late mother's belongings: a beautiful gold music box cylinder, along with a letter saying it was Balthazar's last bequest to him and warning that "with the music within, a mystery begins." When they play the cylinder on a matching music box in the shop, it sounds awful, like no song at all. Then Jason has a flash of insight. The engraved composer's name, S.F.B.M. Orsay, is really S.F.B. Morse, and the strange rhythm is a message in Morse code. Decoded, it becomes a riddle: "Kant holds the code, Descartes holds the key," and the seeker must look within.

Jason realizes the riddle points to books, and in the shop's boxes from the Tolliver estate they find the philosophy volumes. Hidden in Kant is a slip of paper with the number 31979, and hidden in Descartes is a small key. To learn how to use them, they need the original music box, which only Balthazar's other son, Quinton, might have. At this, James confesses the truth: his name is really James Churchill. His mother was the Tollivers' housekeeper, and Balthazar raised him like a son. The letter said Balthazar wanted James and Quinton to play the cylinder together, but the two do not get along, so James pretended to be a Tolliver.

Jason calls Quinton anyway. Quinton storms in, furious that James has been using the family name, but the letter and a newspaper clipping cool the argument, though Quinton stays bitter. He complains that his father wasted the family fortune on games, giving, and causes, leaving him nothing but furniture, and admits he sold the "useless" music box at a yard sale. The buyer, he recalls, was a soft-spoken pastor who wanted it as a prop for a children's play at Odyssey Community Church. Jason happens to be a member there, and the trio finds the box at the church, scratched but intact. In a drawer in its base is a drawing of a roll-top desk and one last rhyme directing them to use the code and key beneath the desk's roll-top. It is the very desk Whit bought, now sitting in the Whittaker home.

At Whit's house, Jason lifts his father's desk calendar and pauses, shaken by something he sees there, though he brushes it off as forgotten dates. Beneath the calendar, a fake wooden knot pops out to reveal the keyhole, and hidden tumblers take the code, which Quinton suddenly recognizes as his own birthday. A secret panel opens, and inside is a Bible. Quinton explodes. It is the same Bible his father gave him at his high school graduation when he had asked for a car, a "game" that made him slam it down on this very desk and storm out. He hurls it across the room, and out flies something he never found because he never opened it: the title to a car, made out in his name.

A note to James also falls from the Bible, and it changes everything. Balthazar writes that James's real father was Melchior Tolliver, Balthazar's own brother, who was disowned for his marriage and died when James was a baby. Balthazar quietly took in James and his mother under her maiden name, Churchill, and raised James as his own. James is his nephew, and Quinton's cousin, and Balthazar's dying wish was for the two of them to finally be family. Quinton leaves in anger anyway, but James is overjoyed, calling the note better than any treasure. Then he discovers one last surprise tucked in the Bible's binding: a financial document showing Balthazar secretly saved millions of dollars, to be divided equally between his sons, Quinton and James. Even so, James says he would trade it all for even one more minute with his father.

Later, at the lake, Whit and Willie look up to see Jason walking toward them, fishing gear in hand. His work is not finished, but he has realized something matters more. He has just watched one man who would not spend five minutes with his living father and another who would give up a fortune for five minutes more, and on Whit's desk calendar he saw three father-son fishing dates, all canceled by the son for no good reason. Jason apologizes for neglecting time with his dad, and Whit welcomes him warmly: he is here now, and that is all that matters.