We had begun clearing out my grandfather’s house three days ago. He was older, 67, but his passing was unexpected. From what the family knew and later testified to, he was healthy, in the best shape a 67 year old could be. This made his passing all the more unexpected. Especially to my mother, who took his death rather hard. I wouldn’t have considered them close, as my mother only ever saw him, at most, once a year. But her grief only intensified over the first 3 days, and it seemed being inside his home, the home she grew up in and created so many memories, was only making the whole situation harder on her.
On the third day, after most of the house was packed into boxes, I found her crying silently in his bedroom. My mother had always hid her emotions well, and it was something she began to teach, whether she knew it or not. Eventually, you become what you know. I sat next to her on the edge of his bed, that same old, ugly yellow blanket still draped over his twin sized bed. Now, it just looked comically outdated.
“Why don’t you let me finish up here?” I asked her.
She looked at me confused, still trying- and failing- to cover up her tears. Before she could interject, I continued.
“The whole downstairs is already packed and I texted James about an hour ago, he said he’ll be here in a few hours. I think I can manage Pops’ bedroom until James shows. Then he can help me load everything into the truck. You really don’t need to be here.”
“No, no. By the time your brother gets here I doubt you’ll have even gotten to the storage room-”
“Mom, I can take care of the rest. I think you should go home and get some rest.”
It wasn’t easy to get her to agree, but eventually she was pulling out of the driveway, a broken smile on her face as she waved goodbye.
Her sadness made me feel strange. Almost… guilty. He was my grandfather. Shouldn’t I feel sad too? Shouldn’t I feel… something? While I don’t have many memories of him, all those that I do have are very fond memories. He came by to visit often when I was little. He always brought me a handful of Dubble Bubble gum, my favorite. He would always tell me “now don’t go tellin’ your mom, alright? I only brought enough for you and we don’t want James to feel left out, do we?”
Sometimes it was like my brother James didn’t even exist when Pops would come around, though James was always preoccupied with his friends. I was surely his favorite. For a while. Until one day, he just stopped coming by. My memories of him, over time, had faded. But I often wondered, even to his passing day, what could have happened? Why did he stop visiting? He existed until he didn’t, and for me his existence faded long before these last 3 days.
I began first by working on stacking random objects left on his dresser into open boxes left on the floor of his room. Most of his room my mother had already packed away while I had finished packing away the last few things left in the kitchen. Besides cleaning off his dresser I mostly just needed to decide which clothes of his to donate and which clothes to throw away.
For a man, I found his belongings incredibly organized. Socks with socks. Pants with pants. Shirts with shirts. All color coordinated, all folded perfectly. It’s something I wondered if he picked up from my grandmother throughout the long course of their marriage. She was a very clean, very organized woman. She was one of my favorite people in the world, and her death hit me incredibly hard.
I was only about 7 years old at the time, so my mother, and the rest of the family, wisely left out the fact that she died by suicide. Apparently she threw herself over the balcony of the bedroom- but not before tying a rope around her neck. I didn’t learn this fact until years after her passing, when I was about 18. To this day, no one really talks about it. I had attempted to bring it up a few times over the years only to be shot down every time.
“It’s important we remember her as we knew her,” is what my mother would say, “reliving her death won’t do anyone no good.”
A year or two before her death she gradually changed. She stopped taking care of herself. She barely ate, barely slept, barely talked. Toward the end it was almost like she was already dead. Eventually I found that my mother was right. It was best not to relive the past. What good would it do, and what could really be changed? Going back and digging into old memories wouldn’t bring her back. I made peace with that some time ago. In her death, I can only hope she has found her peace- wherever her soul may be.
Most of my grandfather’s shirts I tossed into the donation bag- they’d be washed and folded later. I wanted to get rid of his socks and underwear but ultimately decided someone out there probably needs them, they were in good shape and would be washed, anyway. His jeans, however, I decided to throw away. Almost all of his jeans had bad wear and tear to them, holes too large to be ignored or to be donated.
He worked in construction and hardly owned clothes that weren’t stained in oils and dirt, or torn to shreds. He was a rather short man, maybe 5’2, round and stubby- with a dusting of dark hair covering his sagging double chin. His thick brown mustache eventually turned to gray over the years. He had these piercing green eyes that he passed onto my mother- a shade of green, mixed with small hints of brown that sometimes made me feel nauseous if I looked into them for too long. Suddenly, pulling me from my reverie, a soft click triggered my attention. Instinctively my head turned toward the new sound- the hallway. I glanced quickly at my phone and tapped the screen. The time read 6:31. James had said earlier that he wouldn’t be here until after 8. Though still, I called out,
“James?”
I found myself standing at the bedroom door, staring down the dark and narrow hallway. It was empty. When we were younger my brother James would taunt me by saying Pops’ house was haunted. He would say how doors would open on their own, how things he’d put down would be gone or would be moved when he later went back to them, even though Pops’ was outside and our grandmother wasn’t home. He would tell me that he could feel someone watching us- a ghost.
As a child, this obviously terrified me. But as I grew older, his little tricks turned into more of an annoyance than anything else and eventually, he stopped. But now, standing at the doorway, staring down the dark hallway, I felt a fear I hadn’t felt since I was a child.
“James…?” I tried again. I waited. And waited some more. There was no response except for the sound of continued silence. And then.
Click.
From where I stood I could see the closet door down the far end of the hallway shift slightly.
Click.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and looked at the time. It had only been 7 minutes since I last looked. Quickly, I swiped open my messages and pulled up my conversation with James.
“Hey, how far away are you?” My text read.
I stared at the screen for a full 2 minutes, hoping he would tell me he was already here, in the closet moving boxes. But no response came. Figuring there was most likely a logical explanation, I slowly began to creep my way down the hall. Though I kept telling myself it was nothing, just an old house, I still found myself being careful of my footing, trying not to make even the smallest of creaks in the floorboards. I stood outside the closet door, waiting. My phone vibrated in my back pocket. A text from James read:
“Gonna be at least another half hour, maybe 45.”
I stood outside the door for a while, pressing my ear gently against it. The white door was badly nicked up, with dustings of old dried up paint chips covering the floor. I found myself staring at the dustings as I listened. But nothing more followed. Finally, after what felt like hours, I twisted the knob slowly and gave the door a gentle push. The door flew back, slamming against the wall.
“Jesus, fuck!” I shouted, slapping the palm of my hand against my chest. A curtain to the left caught my attention. It was swaying dramatically in the air, the window behind it wide open. I let out a breath of air. As I thought; there’s always a logical explanation to things you often find yourself unable to explain. On the floor in front of my feet lay disarray of boxes. Boxes that led to the open window. I tried to make my way around the boxes by stepping over them, but along the way I had knocked over a large box, scattering random items along the floor. With gritted teeth I knelt on the ground, gathering each fallen item into a pile.
I grabbed the box that fell and tossed the belongings inside, stopping at the sight of a black chest. It was under where the box had fallen from. I found myself gazing at the chest, with a mix of recollection and uncertainty lingering in the haze. Pushing the box to the side I crawled toward the chest, flicking a silver padlock attached to the front. Upon flicking the lock, I realized it wasn’t actually locked; it was just dangling there, asking to be opened. Removing the lock I tossed it into the box behind me, forgetting about it and my previous tasks completely.
Inside the chest I found a collection of what I could only describe as nostalgia. There was an old doll wearing torn overalls. Her bright blonde hair was still badly misshapen from the time I had taken scissors to it. Underneath her, I found an outfit; one I immediately recognized. It was a pink nightgown with one small, single pink bow placed at the right collar bone.
I’ve had some memories of this nightgown over the years but it always came back to me in fleeting memories, passing moments that never stayed long enough for me to place where I knew it from. To the side of the nightgown, out stuck a blue bag. It was a bag of Dubble Bubble gum, and as I pulled it out from under the nightgown, a white, folded up piece of paper slid out from under the bag.
It was a letter from my grandmother, handwritten. I peeled back the folded paper. I paused for a long moment before deciding to continue. On the inside it read:
“Howard. I have loved you since I was just 10 years old. In our 57 years of marriage, we created so many beautiful memories together, the most beautiful of all being our family. But I have spent the last 2 years of our marriage in denial, harboring the most horrendous of secrets. I can carry the weight with me no longer. The knowledge of what you have done, and what I allowed to continue, has made me a culprit to your heinous crimes. At first I tried to think up excuses, any I could find. I blamed it on your medication. I blamed it on myself for not giving you what you needed.
I thought about confronting you. I thought about going to the police. I even thought about killing you. But hours turned into days. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into years until eventually… I began to carry secrets of my own. Every night I lay awake and wonder… who else? We have so many grandchildren. So many granddaughters. Then I think about our daughters, our 7 beautiful baby girls… and I wonder if you ever…
Dear God, Howard… how could you? All the time you spent with Grace. All the times you would go to see her, always taking her toys, her favorite candy… but never James. Every night I pray. I beg for forgiveness.
How could I have been married to you for so long without knowing just how sick you were? In return, your sickness has made me sick. I have spent so much time wondering… how long had it gone on for? What have you done that you hadn’t confessed to me, and that you never will? Not for you, but for the sake of our daughter, I have decided to spare her the knowledge of what you have done. I have written a second letter. A letter of your sins- sins that will be delivered for me, on my behalf, if you ever see Grace again. The only time Grace should ever see you, if even then, is at your funeral. I will burn for my sins, and you will burn for yours.
- - -
I’m back at home, and Pops is with me. My mom is somewhere in the house, probably making the usual meal of Mac and Cheese and hot dogs. There’s a memory of hide and seek, of a made up game of candies in hand. I’m on the top of the steps after finishing our game, unwrapping a piece of Dubble Bubble from its yellow wrapper. Pops is heading down the hallway behind me, toward my bedroom, but stops and turns into the bathroom. The memories continue- of doors left cracked open and the soft whisper of my name. At what point did curiosity turn into knowledge?
For how long did I follow the whisper of my name to find Pops peeking through the cracked door, one hand on the wall and the other pumping up and down at the center of his waist? He never once said anything, out of all the times I found him like this. He only ever looked at me as he hovered over the toilet, his pants never pulled down. The hole cut out of the crotch of his pants left out the need to ever need to. It was easier for him this way- as easy as it was premeditated.
The memories are jumbled. Pops lived only a town away. By car, it was a 10 minute drive. He had promised me ice cream and of course, Dubble Bubble. But I had to go with him. He told my mom we wouldn’t be long, and off we went. We only made it halfway when I could hear the huffs and grunts of what sounded like discomfort coming from his side of the vehicle. When I looked, his hand was resting on the front of his jeans.
“It’s okay, you can look.” He had said. “You can touch it, too, if you want.”
But that’s not the worst part. It’s been 2 months since I found grams letter, and in those 2 months only bits and pieces have come back to me. There’s still no memory of getting to his house that day. No memory of going inside, or for how long we stayed. I only remember Pops’ walking me downstairs. And before leaving I was holding the ice cream cone I was promised in my hands, watching in a daze as the frozen treat began to drip onto my tiny fingers.
I remember telling my mother what happened that night. She was in disbelief. Actual disbelief. She wasn’t mad at me. She didn’t even accuse me of lying. She just told me,
“oh, Gracie! He was talking about George! He wanted you to pet George!”
George was his dog- a weiner dog. I suppose that’s the first thing any mother would think, right? As far as I know, my mother never said anything to Pops. She didn’t want to upset him. But maybe a year after, he stopped coming around. Shortly after that, gram died. And for me, eventually and overtime, memories turned into black spots that ventured into the darkest parts of my subconscious. My mother never mentioned it again after night. But I would sometimes hear her crying. My mother was always good at hiding things. I became good at it too.