Some family secrets should stay secret
It happened a couple of Thanksgivings ago. It was my turn to overcook the turkey, mop up after the gravy boat capsized and forget about the bean dish in the oven until the smoke detector detected it.My parents showed up an hour too early with a large cardboard box that my father shoved at me. “Here, see what you can do with these,” he said.
Great. Hadn’t I told them repeatedly not to bring anything? I lifted the flap expecting to see a division of brown and serve rolls at parade rest. No. File folders. What the–? I flipped open a file. Right there . . . on top of the pile? In The Matter of: Sex Perverts. His old police reports!
These papers were the stuff of family legend. Every so often at large gatherings, after my dad had a few Vodka Gimlets in him, he’d regale us with his war stories of life on the mean streets of Milwaukee, rounding up hoodlums, scofflaws, hooligans, stories that sounded so ridiculous, so unbelievable, that when someone accused him of making it up, he’d raise his right hand and swear, “It’s all in the attic.”
I never went in the attic. No one in the family did. Except my father. Why? Well, it involved way too much equipment and upper body strength, and why go up there for something that probably didn’t even exist?
So, anyway, back to this box of . . . stuff. Why did he give these to me, now? On Thanksgiving? Wait a minute. Was he dying? That would be so very Clint Eastwood of him. To stand up, give the toast, and then, “Oh, no big deal, but . . . I’ve got three weeks to live, pass the stuffing.”
All through the dinner, the football game, then dessert and the picking of the carcass, I kept thinking about that box and its contents - gold mine of material or land mine? I mean, Sex Perverts? Did I want to know?
After the family left, as the dishwasher hummed with its second load of cranberry stained plates, I poured my third (okay fifth) glass of wine and settled in. Just me. The box and my elastic waist pants.
