“The Skeleton” by Joy Nicholas

“I bet there are some skeletons in that closet!” 

Jenny is standing in my kitchen, and I laugh as I say this to her. I don’t get to see my sister often because I live in South Korea, where my husband is stationed, and she lives in Northern California. But right now, we’re together in my home, talking as fast as we can to catch up after many months apart. 

I’ve been telling her how I gave my husband a genetic ancestry test for Christmas, and he was shocked to learn that he actually didn’t have any Native American in him, as family legend had it, but was almost entirely from England and northern Europe. And “shocking ancestry discoveries” leads to how crazy it would be if she or I did the test and learned of unknown aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our maternal grandfather was married and divorced before he married our grandmother, but it was such a dark family secret that he slapped my mother across the face when she found an old photograph of him standing next to his first wife and asked about it. 

And that’s when I say it, that thing about the skeletons in the closet. Jenny just laughs at my words, and it isn’t until later that I remember how her face is strained in a way that is unusual for her. A silence hangs in the air a few moments too long as if something should be said but isn’t.

Because a month later, my dad is in my kitchen, telling me what my sister already knew but wasn’t allowed to say because he wanted to say it himself–how his little sister took one of those ancestry tests. I have a strange sense of deja vu as I half-listen, prepping dinner for the first night of my parents’ visit. But then he says something about how this woman emailed my aunt and said that she was her sister–well, technically her half-sister. 

And then, I’m really listening. 

My aunt didn’t believe it, he continues to ignore the email until another one came. This woman mentioned a relative they had in common according to their genes, and my aunt started asking questions. To everyone’s utter disbelief, it all checked out. This woman is happily married with kids, employed, “comfortable”–just looking for answers about where she comes from and how she fits into the world. Her birth mother made it almost impossible to know anything, but thanks to ancestry tests she finally found a connection. 

Water runs over the vegetables I’m washing in the sink as my dad says, “So it’s true. I have another little sister. She’s fifty-two years old, and her name is –”

It takes only a split second to realize what he is saying, that his dad–my beloved granddad–had an affair, and as a result, I have this aunt I never knew. 

I lean against the counter. This is where I should fall apart. That’s what happens in the movies. But while my heart does a kind of odd flip in my chest, I’m a little surprised to realize that what I feel isn’t a crushing sense of betrayal, disappointment, or disbelief. And all I say is, “Oh.”

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Granddad–my dad’s father–had a gentle face and soft features, kind blue eyes behind his thick glasses with deep laugh wrinkles and a smile usually teasing the corners of his mouth. When I was four years old, I climbed on his lap and cupped his leathery cheeks that smelled of Old Spice in my little hands. “Granddad,” I said, “you have a cute and pretty face.” He always claimed it was the best compliment he’d ever received. 

Two years before he passed away, he miraculously survived being held up and shot at close range. The newspaper report described him as “an elderly gentleman” which he declared in mock outrage was completely false. “I’m not old!” he grumbled, at the boyish age of eighty. “And I’m certainly no gentleman!”

But everyone who knew him knew the truth. Here was a man who always held the door open for others. Who had a kind word for everyone. Who loved a good story, heard or told.

Babies were his favorite. He’d play peekaboo with the child in the arms of a woman in front of him at the grocery store. One Christmas, he bought my sister and I baby bunnies. As thrilled as I was, I believe he was even happier. His backyard contained a small aviary, and every time some of his birds hatched, he would insist that we come over and meet the new arrivals. 

I grew up in Bangladesh, and he visited us with commendable regularity, despite the distance from his California home. He even traveled with us to India, where we visited one of Mother Theresa’s orphanages in Kolkata. Every memory I have of that day, he was seated on the floor with a child in his arms, his eyes brimmed with tears.

Granddad was a pacifist, but since he desired to serve his country during World War II, he became a Navy chaplain. After twenty years, he retired and became a chaplain for the California Youth Authority. One time, he told me, he was listening to the radio report of someone executed at San Quentin. He recognized the name and remembered how that boy kept a ragged old teddy bear in his locker during his years at the CYA.

The church was completely full at his funeral, where he was laid out in his Navy dress blues. Stories were told of his faithfulness, humor, and kindness. People hugged my grandma, his wife of almost fifty-nine years, and I stared at the coffin with tears streaming down my cheeks, wondering how he could be gone already and if it would ever have not felt “too soon.” Just a week before, he’d seen me off on a trip I’d dreamed about for ages. Everyone told me how it was so good that he didn’t suffer, how he hated to ever feel like a burden to anyone. But I still felt robbed of one last “I love you.” 

********

It’s amazing how quickly your mind can race through memories. This is what happens in the few seconds after my dad tells me about this aunt I have never known–the daughter my granddad never knew. Dad says something about how he remembers a time that would have been right about when his half-sister was conceived when my grandparents would get into screaming fights with each other. He didn’t know exactly why except that his mother thought his father was spending too much time away. 

“They screamed at each other?” I ask because the image of Granddad being that furious is strange to me.

Dad nods. “Oh yeah! He wasn’t always the gentle spirit you knew. He could get mad–real mad–back in the day.” But again, I simply agree; it makes sense now that I think about it, especially as the memories race through my mind.

I see my hands on Granddad’s face that day when I was so little, and the crowded church at his funeral. I hear his words to my grandma, toasting her on their fiftieth anniversary. It’s that Thanksgiving again, for a second anyway, the one where he playfully grabs Grandma in his arms and dips her low to the ground, kissing her on the lips as we all laugh and hoot and cheer him on. 

I see his profile again from the passenger seat of his red Toyota pickup. He is driving me to another outpatient appointment at Stanford, after my battle with anorexia and a month-long stay in the hospital there. These drives are their own kind of therapy, as he tells me the stories of growing up in Missouri with an alcoholic and philandering father, how he came to California during the Depression with just enough money for the train fare and became the “world’s worst bus boy” at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. He tells me about my dad, the holy terror he could be, the times he almost died from crazy, stupid choices. And all these stories have a strong current coursing through them, one of forgiveness and mercy–of second (third, sixth, thirteenth) chances and prevailing hope. 

I also hear him in the aftermath of a fight with my sister, when I said words full of fire, chosen to destroy because of what she did to me. His face is uncharacteristically serious. “Remember, Joy, the book of Matthew, where Jesus said, ‘I desire mercy.’” 

And there in my kitchen, I realize I’m not trying to reconcile what I’ve just learned about the man I thought I knew with who he really was. The truth is, I haven’t lost anything. Instead, what I feel is more like the moment where the last piece of a puzzle finally fits into place. My understanding of him is more complete. He wasn’t a man who just spoke of forgiveness and mercy as lovely, ethereal concepts that are “good for you” like vitamins, but whose life was sustained and carried because he had wrestled with and deeply experienced them. 

I “meet” my new-to-me aunt on FaceTime a couple of days later. She is kind and sweet, and I can see my granddad’s gentle features on her face. She has a daughter the same age as one of mine. When we hang up, I have a certain familiar heartache like the one when my kids ask me about Granddad, because they’re related to a wonderful man they never got to know. Except that this ache is a little sharper for my aunt because he was her father.

So, I promise myself that one day, when I meet her in person, I will tell her all the memories I have of him and try to patch some of the holes her soul has carried throughout her life. I will tell her about his laugh and try to remember all his favorite jokes. I’ll tell her how the last thing he said to me as I left on a trip to Paris, five days before the heart attack that took his life was, “Bad things are going to happen, Joy. What matters is that you have a good story when it’s over.” 

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