Family Secret

“Oh, no thank you.” Mary wouldn’t need a menu. She knew exactly what she would order before they arrived. Hadn’t she been in this place every week since it opened? Rather here than cooking just for herself. Breakfast, no matter what time of day she happened to be visiting. Steak and eggs, hash brown casserole; sometimes, if she wasn’t particularly watching her diet, she’d add a stack of pancakes with maple syrup.

On this day, she and Susan were just coming from the graveyard. Today was the first time she had visited her mother’s grave since the headstone was set. Checking out the words etched in the marble: Loving Mother, Home at Last, date of death just three months ago. They had tidied up the gravesite, raking fallen oak leaves and twigs from around the grave and replacing the faded plastic roses with yellow mums—her mother’s favorite—to honor the season.

Lingering over the meal together, the two women relished the memories of their years growing up in the old house. A two-storied farmhouse, built over a hundred years ago, spacious enough to hold them and the four brothers that came between them. Old now, dilapidated, and ready for destruction since no one would be living there. Memories, so many.

“But you know what I remember most?” Susan said after swallowing the last drop of coffee. “Cold. Like the way this coffee was.” Grimacing. “It was always cold. Seems like the heat from the stove never made it to my toes.” Both women laughed in agreement. “One of my first memories; it was always cold.” Her body tightened in a shiver. “And why did you always have to put me in a dress?”

“Because you were just the cutest thing ever in lace and pink rickrack and satin bows,” Mary answered, her heart overflowing with the image. “From the first time I laid eyes on you, I started planning your dresses. I spent the whole time I stayed with Aunt Ella learning to sew pretty things for you. Before you were even born, I had a chest full of linen gowns with pink bows and tiny pearl buttons.”

“You never told me why you stayed with her,” Susan said.

“She needed help for a few months. I turned sixteen in her house.” Mary grew quiet, looked down at the plate, focused on finishing her eggs. “You were six weeks old when I brought that chest home. I had to try every gown on you right away. Mother said I was going to rub your skin off. I was so happy to be home and get to play dress-up with you.”

“And I don’t think you ever stopped. I bet you would try to now if I’d let you.” Susan was exaggerating and teasing a bit, but Mary knew she was right. Looking across the table at the young woman she loved more that life itself. The woman who could have her last breath. The woman she still saw as that little girl; the one who had been her very life for 30 years.

“Funny how I remember you always being the one to take care of me. Oh, and dressing us alike. You’d come downstairs ready for church. I always knew what you were going to put on me because you’d already be wearing it! And fixing my food. Taking me to school. And whatever else I needed. I swear you were always more like my mother than my sister.”

“I guess she was busy with the boys. Anyway, I loved taking care of you.” Mary stared at the fireplace, lit maybe for the first time this season. The logs crackling, smoke rising up to the chimney, reminding her of the old fireplace at home. The days she loved most were caring so tenderly for the little girl in her mother’s house.

“Mary? Mary!” Susan said, pulling her back to reality. “Oh, my gosh. You look just like me staring off like that! I look in the mirror at home sometimes and see you! We must look like Dad because I’ve never seen any of our mother's face in us. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, yes you do look like me. I always saw that. But mostly you just look like yourself!”

“I just wished I’d behaved like you and maybe I wouldn’t have got in so much trouble. Mother said you spoiled me rotten and I think she was right. Remember that time I broke her ceramic bird, and she was going to spank me, and you jumped between us. Then you grabbed me and ran off to the barn. I thought she was going to beat us both, and you, a grown woman! But she didn’t.”

“She and I had different ideas about when children needed spanking. I guess she let me win when it came to you.”

“And that day I got into Dad’s little cedar box where he kept his important papers. I was looking at all our birth certificates and, lord, you would have thought I had murdered somebody. She snatched them out of my hand and took off down the hall screaming at me! You didn’t help me that time.”

“No, I didn’t,” Mary said, pointing her finger at Susan. “You needed to mind your own business and stay out of other people’s belongings.”

“So, I’ll tell you the rest of the story now,” Susan said. “A few weeks later, I sneaked and got back into that box. I had to know what was so darned secret. And guess what, my birth certificate wasn’t in there. Yours and all the boys, but not mine. I was going to try to get up the nerve to ask Mother about that, but I guess I never did. I’m glad I remembered that; I’m going to look again when we get back to the house, and if it’s not there, I’ll just order one from the health department.”

The meal took longer than it ought because the plan was to return to the house, where they would begin the sad task of going through the old woman’s things and begin the process of closing the house. Their goal today was to pull out what they wanted to keep.

“I think you need to keep that cedar box, Mary. I don’t want it, and I’m sure the boys don’t,” Susan said, getting the process started.

Mary stood, pushed in her chair back in place, and began pulling on her jacket.

“Oh, wait,” Susan said. “At the wake you said you had something that Mother wanted you to tell me after she died. Then we got busy with the funeral, and you never said what it was. So, what’s the big secret?”

Mary sank back into her chair; felt the blood drain from her face. It was time Susan knew.