Unspoken Agreement

Here's the thing about the thing about loss. It leaves a mark on your soul. Every. Single. Time. No matter how big or small the loss is, it will leave you forever changed. Sometimes in the most unexpected of ways.

When I was a kid, I watched our house burn to the ground with my father inside. I don't really remember what happened. After spending the last two decades stuffing my memories into the dark corners of my mind, that period of my life is a little fuzzy. What I do know is the next day my mom packed up our family...my 3 younger siblings and I....and we disappeared into the night. I didn't question it. None of us did. We never talked about it. It just became an unspoken agreement between the five of us. We started our lives over 1000 miles away and never looked back.

Throughout the years, reminders of what we left behind would pop up. It usually occurred when one of us would have a bit too much to drink or smoke. This in turn would lead to an emotional outburst. Shouting...crying...blame...shame...guilt....the whole nine yards. The next morning, we would all go back to pretending nothing happened. Another unspoken agreement.

Our mom passed away shortly after my 30th birthday. My siblings and I sat together in her apartment after all of the well-wishers filed out. We sat around her coffee table with a bottle of cheap tequila. It was just the four of us. Spouses and children were back at the hotel a few blocks away. This was a moment for us alone. You see, our mom had been sick for some time. We have been preparing ourselves for some time. Although we never said anything, we knew when she was gone it would be time to face our past.

As I searched for shot glasses in our mother's empty cupboards, Keri spoke up and broke the heavy silence.

“Where do we even start?” Her voice was soft and heavy with grief. As the baby in the family, this had hit her especially hard.

The oldest of my two brothers sighed and opened the bottle of booze. I placed a shot glass in front of each of us. The youngest brother poured a drink for each of us and I whispered, “We start here.”

We clinked our glasses together and drank. I let myself feel the burn of fiery tequila go through my body.

As the oldest, it became my role early on to take charge and be the keeper of secrets. I got up and walked to our mother’s bedroom. I reached under the bed and pulled out an old leather backpack. I went back to the living room and placed it in the middle of the table. Everyone stared at it for a moment as if it was going to jump out at any second and bite. None of us had ever looked in the bag but we all knew it existed.

“Oh for fuck sake!” I finally said. I opened the bag and poured to contents out.

Piles of cash bundled with rubber bands fell out along with a tattered black notebook. My sister touched the cash lightly.

“Holy shit. How much do you think is there?” She asked softly.

“Easily 50 grand.” Our brother, Kyle, answered. He was the smart one of us. He spent years in college studying finance to become a financial manager for some fancy corporation. He picked up some of the bundles. “Maybe more. There's a lot of mixed bills here.”

As he and our other brother, Jake, split the cash up and started counting, I picked up the black notebook. My sister looked over my shoulder as I flipped through the pages of our mom's neatly scrawled handwriting. The book was obviously a journal of some sort. I paused randomly to read out loud.

“I did the best I could. I just wanted to keep them safe. I hope she never remembers. Sometimes I think she does by the way she glares at me with such disdain. But she never says anything. She won't talk to me anymore. I can't say I blame her. If I had paid attention...if I had been s better mom...things would be so different.”

I flip through a few more pages. “When I saw Lorelei standing there. I just knew. She didn’t move a muscle. She was in shock and stared at the flames in front of her. She just kept saying it was all her fault. I should have listened. Why didn't I listen? I ignored the evidence in front of me and defended the man I loved. The man I thought I knew. It's something I will have to live to with.”

A frozen block settled in the pit of my stomach. Everyone was looking at me. I flipped through the pages again. “Kyle came home drunk last night. He was screaming at me. Blaming me for not knowing his family. For his father dying and losing the chance to know him. He's not wrong. I let him shout and cry. I know he will understand one day. I don't know how to explain that their father was dead because I did not listen. Could not listen.”

A memory tried to come forward. Daddy? I tried to stuff it back down as quickly as it came up. I felt sick. It was like a floodgate had opened. Broken images overwhelmed me. My head spun as I tried to make sense of the fragmented past.

My sister took the notebook from me.

“Looking back now I can see all of the evidence in front of me. The secrets. The hiding. I think I knew all along something was wrong. I just refused to let myself see it. He came from such a complicated background but he was beautiful. And he loved me. I thought he loved me. I didn’t realize what he did while I was at work. In front of our children. It’s all so wrong. But he’s gone and all I can think is I miss his smile. I miss his touch. I deserve to be punished.”

She flipped towards the end.

“I'll be gone soon. The doctors say I will be lucky to see snow this year. I have always loved snow. It's one of the few things that bring peace to my soul. I can only hope once I am gone, the kids find their own peace. That they forgive me and realize that though I was not perfect, I love them. In his own way, their father loved them. I took his stash of money when we left. I haven't touched it in years. I think I always knew it was dirty. I used it to get us started and then tried to forget it was here. It will be all I have left. I know they will find out about it. I will leave this journal with it. Then they can finally know the truth.”

My sister closed the journal and tossed it on the table.

“It was me?" I whispered.

They all looked at me.

My voice trembled, “I remember. I think. I’m not sure….” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “It’s all jumbled up and broken.” They were all staring at me. “Oh my god….did I kill dad? I remember him pushing me outside because he caught me watching him. That’s all I remember.”

Jake put his hand on my arm while Keri stared at us. “I never forgot,” he whispered. We all looked at him now.

“You knew dad was up to no good while mom was at work. No one would listen to you. It was always he’s such a good guy. He’s the best thing that ever happened to your mom. I believed you and saw how it tore you up. You loved dad. Worshipped the very ground he walked on. That night while mom was at work, you snuck out of bed to go talk to him. I followed you. He caught you and pushed you out. He went back in while you cried for him. Within a few moments....” He paused. “You didn’t do anything and you couldn’t stop it. It was a stupid accident on his part. When mom got there, you kept saying it’s my fault. I think you felt a lot of guilt because no one believed you. I think Mom thought you did it and fled with us to keep a false secret.” Jake was the quietest of us. He barely spoke up. He made his words count. His confession overwhelmed me and I understood so much more of my quiet brother. He was always watching, not talking. He was the real secret keeper.

Kyle stood up. He cleared his throat. “There is $80,000 here.”

Keri was pacing as she normally did when she was thinking. “That’s 20000 for each of us if we split it equally. I vote we take the money and continue on with our lives as we always have. An unspoken agreement of silence.”

After nodding in agreement, we finished our bottle and got up to go. I felt the weight of the money I carried. Who was my daddy really? Would I ever know? Did I ever want to know?