I’ve never really been close to my family, but I’ve never been distant with them either. My sisters and I have very strong personalities that often clashed when we were younger and unable to communicate properly. My parents often fought, and my father fucking bellowed, so we didn’t exactly learn deescalation tactics either. The divorce happened after we left for college. Now we all sort of keep to ourselves in our own corners of the country. As for my non-immediate family, I only ever saw them for a few major holidays like Easter or Christmas, and those stopped after graduation as well.
I know I should’ve taken an interest in my heritage sooner, but it just wasn’t something anyone talked about. We knew where we were from, but that was it. La Vieja was from Cuba, Nana Maria was from Puerto Rico, Great Namaw Alice was from Ireland, and Pop-pop’s fathers were from the Deep South. And, yeah, all of that sounds hella fascinating, but I didn’t know that when I was a kid. I just knew I was “half latino”.
I’m not even sure why I took an interest in the first place. I guess I felt bad for not doing it sooner. Maybe I had just watched Coco? Plus, I had never even seen photos of my grandparent’s parents.
I asked my Tita for notes, and I found out so much cool information. There were doctors and chess masters, immigrants that came through the landmark Ellis Island, land owners fighting through harsh racial discrimination. Stories of folks less fortunate working their way to the top through sheer determination and power of will.
Eventually, I got kinda mad. This wasn’t just me being willfully ignorant about my ancestors. Neither of my parents mentioned any of this. We would just hop in the car to see Nana and Viejo, spend the day watching Disney movies on VHS with our cousins, eat dinner, and go home. Same thing with Mom-Mom, except she lived by the bay so we’d hang out by the water.
We never really visited Pop-Pop…
At some point, I asked my mom about it. Why didn’t they ever tell us about all the cool shit my grandparents used to do?
And she got very quiet, which is kind of unusual. Again, my sisters and I are loud and opinionated, so we get that from somewhere.
“Your grandparents were very different people than our parents,” she finally said. “It’s… a long story.”
So, just a heads up right there.
But I said I wanted to know. I deserved to know. Especially after all those years smoking weed, majoring in Theater, going to therapy, and thinking I was the only problematic child to be born within the bloodline. I didn’t care if there were addicts or abusers in the family tree. Trauma is just as important as triumph; every piece of history helps us better understand ourselves.
Plus, all my grandparents are dead. Like. Can we please just talk about shit now?
She sighed, reluctantly admitting that I was right. We met for brunch the next day, and she asked if I was absolutely, positively sure that I wanted to do this. I got annoyed and was like,
“I already found slave-owners and cousin-kissers in the tree. What else is there?”
She laughed it off at first. “I almost forgot about that mundane stuff!”
Not the adjective I would have used to describe incest and slavery, which made me kind of nervous. But she grew serious.
“You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. This is your last chance to have simple memories of them.”
When I responded yes for a third and final time, I was expecting, like, a shoebox filled with photos and newspaper clippings of small town scandals.
I received a trunk.
And while there were some photos, there were… other things.
A locked diary, a leather wallet, a golden pocketwatch that was still ticking, a pair of cracked bifocals, a silver lantern with melted wax from a black candle, two faceless copper coins, a wooden walking stick (might be a shillelagh?), and an old sword.
At the time, I thought the last one was the weirdest. My mom didn’t even care for super sharp knives in the house. I asked what all this crap was.
She told me to start with the journal, and I really, truly meant to do it sooner. Unfortunately, a few months later, her cancer came back and she passed shortly after. So genealogy sort of went on the backburner for a while. Then a year went by, and her birthday was in December, so I decided to reopen the trunk.
It felt different.
Was there always a key with the diary? Had there been a candle in the lantern? Was the watch stopped or ticking before?
I don’t quite remember.
I’m not a religious person, but I have a small altar filled with stuff I like to look at. I rearranged a few things so that the contents of the trunk had an entire shelf to themselves. It took about an hour, and I was happy with the result. I assumed the high of accomplishment was because I had spent the last week not cleaning.
Then my dreams were different.
I usually have nightmares. Like, ones so bad that I don’t get an adequate amount of sleep. I never remember them. I just remember the absolute anguish. It’s that emotional agony of exhausting every option and still failing. If I don’t take my pills, I wake up every three or four hours, literally drenched in sweat. I have to change clothes, sheets, and sometimes even take a hot shower to stop shivering. Sucks, but the new round of pharmaceuticals has been going well for the past six months.
Anyway, they were different that night.
Vivid. Visceral.
Someone killed me. They came up from behind and slipped a piano wire around my neck. The pain was a string of fire, followed by the utter panic of no oxygen on my inhale. I fell to my knees and tried to get my phone out of my pocket.
My mom. I had to call my mom.
I woke up, hands flying to my throat. The sweat almost felt like blood.
I gasped to scream, but my smoker lungs made me cough instead. Which was a nice reminder that I was ok without waking the neighbors. I drank some water, got changed, sucked on my vape, and found myself staring at the altar. Sometimes it takes a few hours for me to fall back asleep. So, on a whim, I took the diary back to my bed to read.
It belonged to someone named Virginia. The first few pages were sloppy handwriting, like that of a child. Then it changed to something more legible, and much sadder in tone.
11 April 1889
There is nothing left of Father. All we have is his shillelagh.
3 February 1890
We found a buyer. I leave tomorrow.
17 October 1891
Namaw Alice is dead.
21 June 1897
Hello, old friend. I’m sorry it has been so long.
Father gave you to me a long time ago. He kept our traditions alive with his stories, and supposed I’d be a great orator like him. I do not possess his charisma, so writing will have to suffice. I promise I’ll do more of it.
I hope to make him proud someday.
4 July 1898
It is a holiday here in the United States. I too have reason to celebrate independence.
I killed Robert.
May whatever gods we knelt to back home have mercy on me here. I know Jesus Christ certainly won’t.
6 July 1898
I have such freedom now that he is gone. The sun shines brighter. The birds sing for me. Honey tastes sweeter than before.
I have not been given this second chance at life. It was nearly taken from me.
I took it back.
It’s strange, how mere pages were a lifetime ago.
Shall I tell you how it happened? I’ve spent so long being afraid that giving voice to any of my suffering will condemn me…
So be it.
I will spare no details in my confession so that if they damn me, they also damn him, and anyone else who claims “love” in such forms of cruelty.
I quickly checked my notes and found Robert was the one that worked as a plantation overseer for more than twenty years. I found at least two auction receipts. There were no marriage records of him and Virginia, but she shared his last name on his death certificate.
I think… I think Robert bought a child bride.
And if you’re like, “wow, sad, but that’s not a big scary twist, that’s just the way things were back then”, that doesn’t make it right. Those young girls weren’t any less terrified when lying in bed with a man more than twice their age, no matter how commonplace it was.
Are my nightmares born of the fear from my ancestors? The ones who used to lie awake wondering if they would be alive at the end of the week?
I want to keep reading, but (and I hate admitting this) I’m nervous. What else am I going to find out? We’ve already added murder and child trafficking to the list…
Is that who my grandparents were? Hardcore criminals? Were we distanced from them for that purpose?
My dreams have been getting worse, and the wind howls louder every night. Like even the outside world knows I’ve opened Pandora’s trunk. I sleep with the sword next to my bed, just in case. Kind of silly because I live in the suburbs…
All of this is silly actually.
None of it is real, right? Like, dark magic and cursed objects following generations…
It’s all just bullshit right?