Family Secrets Read online

  When I was just a little kid, I knew that my grandfather hated me to death. The feeling was mutual.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to see him too often: only at major holidays and the odd summer weekend up at the shared family cottage. Whenever occasions forced me into close proximity, I did my best to avoid him by hanging around with my cousins or disappearing into my room to read. Sometimes I had no choice in the matter--like over the July long weekend in the mid-1970s when I was ten, and Mom gave the dreaded order “Jill, why don’t you go outside and spend some time with your Grandpa?”

  I knew better than to protest. As his only daughter, Mom doted on her Dad and seemed oblivious to what an old brute he was to my cousins and me. He was disruptive, demanding and apparently immortal. I repressed a sigh and went out the kitchen door of the cottage, leaving my mother and Aunt Carol to the dinner preparations. Pausing at the top of the porch steps, I scanned the sloping yard and spotted Grandpa sitting in a Muskoka chair under the shade of a massive old willow tree.

  I was in no hurry to join him. I started across the lawn, kicking at fallen twigs in the grass and racking my brain for something we could talk about. It was hopeless. I don’t think Grandpa had ever liked women all that much and he seemed even less fond of little girls. For as long as I had memory, every attempt at conversation between us had ended in stalemate. His icy glare, and his milky, blind left eye made me so nervous that I’d barely manage a low mumble, and then the half-deaf old fart would shout:

  “What? Speak up, lass!”

  Impatiently banging his cane, he’d bark in a raspy voice with a thick Glaswegian accent he’d never lost over the decades, even though he’d emigrated in his teens just after World War One. I could barely understand him half the time and that just got him even more agitated with me. He’d curse and mutter to himself, and we’d end up sitting in an awkward silence. I didn’t like being near him--he had a sour, musty odour that made me queasy. I'd avoid eye contact and stare in morbid fascination at his ugly hands clutching his cane or the arm of his chair. The arthritic knuckles bulged and gave his fingers the appearance of claws tipped with hard yellow nails, usually ragged and in need of cutting. I lived in horror of him touching me. Luckily for me, he rarely did.

  But there was something more malevolent that went beyond all of the childish physical repulsion: something irrational that I couldn’t find the words to articulate at ten-years-old. Even now in my forties looking back, putting a name to the exact sentiment is deeply elusive. I’d felt that way as long as I could remember--ages before that pivotal July cottage visit. Maybe it was because my dog Benny would slink away cowering whenever Grandpa tried to pet him: the old man was the only person alive who Benny wouldn’t rush to greet with sloppy kisses. It was as if he’d sensed the same malignancy in him that I could feel. But--as my parents would endlessly remind me--poor Grandpa was just an old man made weak by a series of strokes. He was lonely, having been a widower for twenty-five years. And he was my Grandfather. His blood flowed in my veins. One day, my mother would scold, I would be old and lonely too… and how would I like it if my own grandchildren avoided me whenever I came to visit? Yet the primeval guilt her words provoked in me did nothing to lessen my feelings of unspeakable dislike.

  I was halfway to the tree when I heard the screen door bang shut. I turned to see my older cousin Robert thumping down the porch steps, obviously delegated to the same pre-dinner duty as I had been. I gladly waited for him, and we silently walked together underneath the canopy of the willow. At least I wouldn’t be stuck all alone with the miserable creep.

  Grandpa was slumped over in his chair, his arms dangling loosely at his sides. His gnarled wooden cane had dropped over onto the grass. His blind left eye was half-open and staring. My stomach lurched. For a horrible, heady moment, I thought he was dead… until he twitched and gave a loud gurgling snore. Robert and I sat on the ground as far away from Grandpa as we could, and yet technically still be beneath the tree with him.

  “Maybe if we’re real quiet, he’ll stay asleep until it’s time for dinner,” I whispered.

  “Yeah. They told us we had to spend time with him, but they didn’t say he had to be awake for it.”

  Robert gave me a lop-sided grin and winked. I smiled back. My fourteen-year-old cousin was the greatest guy I knew and I worshipped him during my tomboy stage. I aspired to grow into a female version of him, with the same long athletic limbs, and a floppy fringe of hair that hung in his eyes. Most of all, I loved his attitude of cool cynicism and did my best to imitate it whenever we were together. I cocked my head in the same sardonic way he did as we regarded the sleeping old man with open disgust.

  “Look at his eye,” I said, nudging Robert with my elbow. “Gross, huh? I hope I don’t go blind like that when I get old.”

  "Doubt it,” snorted Robert. “He lost it in a pub fight.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He used to get real drunk and bash anyone in sight. I heard Dad and Uncle Chuck talkin’ about it in the car when we drove into town to the beer store yesterday. I pretended I was asleep in the back seat. I find out all the good family secrets that way. You should try it sometime.”

  Winking, Robert glanced at Grandpa to make sure that he was still asleep before continuing. I leaned my head in closer as Robert dropped his voice to a whisper.

  “Dad said that one night when he was nine, he remembered Grandpa yelling at Grandma so loud that he woke up the whole house. They were all too scared to go downstairs, but they could hear him breakin’ stuff and kickin’ chairs around the kitchen. He accused her of foolin’ around with one of their farmhands. He even called her a ‘slut’ and a ‘bitch’.”

  I winced. For his part, Robert seemed to relish repeating such forbidden words out loud.

  “Then he drove into town and searched all of the pubs and beer halls lookin’ for the farmhand. When he finally found him, Grandpa jumped the guy, but he put up a good fight and smashed a beer bottle into his face. Even with all the blood and broken glass stuck in his eye, Grandpa still managed to knock him out before the other men in the pub hauled him off and took him to the doctor’s house.”

  I skeptically glanced at Grandpa’s withered arms and legs: he couldn’t even get out of a car or up the stairs without someone’s help. I knew, because I usually got stuck helping him when he came to visit. His filthy yellow nails always dug into my shoulder. I could swear he did it on purpose.

  “Oh sure,” said Robert, with the superior wisdom of his fourteen years. “He doesn’t look so tough now, but when he was younger... ” My cousin clicked his tongue and paused for dramatic effect. “How do you think Grandma died?”

  I felt a chill at the base of my spine.

  “She tripped and fell down the cellar stairs. It was an accident. Everyone knows that.”

  Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true.

  "Bullshit. That’s just what he wants everyone to think... but no one else was there. Your Mom, my Dad and Uncle Chuck were all at school on the day it happened--remember? No one else but Grandpa actually saw her 'fall'.” He jerked his head toward Grandpa. “We only have his word for it. And I sure as shit don’t believe him.”

  "You mean you think that Grandpa killed-”

  “Robert!” called Aunt Carol from the back porch. “Get in here and help me set the table.”

  Freed from the hateful chore by a lesser one, Robert leapt up and ran to the cottage without a backward glance. I enviously watched him go then turned back toward the old man.

  Grandpa had stopped snoring. His one good eye was open now… staring straight at me. I could tell by his expression that we’d been overheard.

  I could barely eat any supper that night. Throughout the meal, Grandpa glared at Ro
bert and me with his one watery-grey good eye. His silence was oppressive. A lump of roll got caught in my throat and no amount of water would dislodge it. Grandpa's intense staring didn’t seem to faze Robert, who ended up eating my cob of corn and most of my ham. I told my mother that I didn’t feel well, and asked if I could be excused and go to bed early.

  I couldn’t get to sleep. I kept thinking about my Grandma Annabelle. Mom told me she’d been known as 'Belle' because she’d been so lovely.

  “In fact, you look a lot like her, Jill. You’ll be the spit of her when you grow up. A real heart-breaker.”

  I could see the strong family resemblance. Old photographs showed a kind-faced woman with large eyes and a plait of thick, dark hair just like mine. I even had her name: Jillian Annabelle. There was a framed picture of her in the cottage bedroom where I slept. Her face was the last thing I saw before I turned out the bedside lamp--like a mirror image of my own future grown-up self. But even smiling for photos, she always looked sad. I wished I could’ve known her in my lifetime, but almost all of my grandparents had died before I was born.

  All but Grandpa.

  Maybe that was why he didn’t seem to like me--I reminded him too much of his dead wife. I tossed and turned in the July heat. The small electric fan simply blew the warm air around the stifling room, and did nothing to cool me that night. The cottage had long grown quiet before I finally dropped off and had a nightmare.

  In the dream, I am sitting at my grandparents’ kitchen table. Grandma is at the stove with her back to me, humming a tune and stirring a pot. Grandpa bursts in through the back door. He is young and strong, with lean farmer’s muscles--and his two good eyes are narrowed in cold accusation. He has a half-empty bottle gripped in his fist. Ignoring me, he lunges at Grandma and grabs her arm, twisting her around to face him.

  "Bitch! Slut!”

  Terrified, she stares at him in confusion and cringes as he leans in closer, spitting vile words into her face with his boozy breath.

  “Don’ t pretend you don’t understand me, woman! I saw you, Belle--out there in the barn with that bastard farmhand!”

  He hurls down the bottle, smashing it into lethal-looking shards. Grandma is barefoot.

  “Who? You mean Jasper? We were just talking... I was asking after his sister-”

  She is trying to pull away but Grandpa is holding her fast, squeezing deeply into the flesh of her upper arms. He starts forcing her backward across the room in a sick parody of a joyless two-step dance. Stumbling into the glass, Belle gashes her foot, leaving a streak of whiskey and blood on the floor. I realize exactly where he’s pushing her and that the cellar door is wide open. I try to scream… to warn her… but no sound comes out. I can’t move. I can only watch.

  “Don’t lie! I saw you hangin’ onto his arm, leanin’ up against him, laughin’... were you laughin’ at me? Eh?”

  "No! We’re just old friends... Peter, stop! Please... I swear to God- ”

  He gives her a violent shove and she topples through the gaping door into the blackness of the stairwell. Her dying shriek is echoed by one of my own as I suddenly find my voice. Grandpa whirls around to face me... he can see me after all! Now his left eye is dangling from its socket and oozing blood as he sneers. I scream louder.

  “Shut up that howlin’! You didn’t see nothin’--you hear me, brat?” Growling, he reaches out, his hands twisting and yellowing into ragged talons as they plunge towards my eyes…

  I jolted awake in a cold sweat. I could hear Grandpa’s rumbling snores through the thin cottage walls in the next bedroom. Trembling, I turned on my bedside lamp. After the nightmare, I couldn’t bear to look at the picture of Belle. I whispered an apology and gently set the frame face down on the table so I couldn't see her any more and she couldn't see me. There was no way I could get back to sleep after that. I sat up reading through a stack of Robert’s dog-eared Marvel comics until dawn.

  The next day was to be our last full day at the cottage before my parents and I drove back to the city. Through careful maneuvering, I managed to avoid Grandpa at both breakfast and lunch by eating early and bolting down my food before he could get to the table. I hoped I could be so lucky again at dinnertime. The late afternoon sun was beating down on my back as I sat alone on the end of the dock in my bathing suit, but I was too tired from lack of sleep to do much more than dangle my feet in the water in an effort to keep cool. Nobody else was around. The adults were all inside in the cool front sitting room, and Benny was likely under the porch in the shade. I spotted Robert with his friend Tom from the cottage next door out in a rowboat, paddling back across the lake from the small, rocky island in its centre. I wished they’d thought to ask me along for the ride.

  There was a sudden vibration of hollow, uneven footsteps on the dock. Slowly, I turned to see my grandfather leaning heavily on his cane as he paused and caught his breath… fixing me with his basilisk glare. He was all on his own. It was a mystery how he’d made it down the steep lawn from the cottage without help, but there he was. I suppose if he put his mind to it and had a pressing enough purpose, he could still summon up some of his past farmer’s strength in his wasted limbs. I was trapped. The dock was narrow, and there was no way I could get past him if he’d wanted to stop me. I couldn’t move.

  Grandpa shuffled toward me and lowered himself into a lawn chair just behind my back. He was less than an easy cane-length’s reach away from me. I could smell his stale denture breath as he grumbled something incoherent to himself, his dead eye glazed and watery… and his good eye blazing with unmasked hatred. Coughing, he cleared phlegm from his throat and spat. His mouth twitched as he formed his next words--taking extra care with his accent so I’d understand.

  “We need to have a wee chat, lass.”

  My gaze froze on his hand clutching the cane: his bulging arthritic knuckles were whitened with his tight grip and his wiry arm was tensed--ready to lash out. I didn’t wait to be shoved. Leaping to my feet, I half-dove, half-fell into the water and started to swim away from Grandpa as fast as I could. In hindsight, I know that I should’ve simply made my way close along the shoreline and then walked back up to the cottage through the trees, but I was far too frightened for rational thought. I headed straight out toward the middle of the deep lake in a fast but awkward front crawl.

  I grew weak. The water was getting colder the further out I went. Struggling to stay afloat, I spun back around to see how far I’d swum. Grandpa stood on the very edge of the dock. Raising his cane, he slowly waved it at me--was he waving for me to come back, or just waving goodbye as I drowned? I was shocked at how small and distant he looked. I’d never been out so far before, even with a paddleboard or an inflatable rubber tube--and never all alone. As the remaining strength drained from my chilled limbs, I lost my grip on the surface of the lake and went under. The water was a dark murky-green beneath me, fading down and away into a depthless black. I started to panic and splutter, gulping water instead of air as I thrashed to regain control.

  "Hang on, Jill!"

  Robert was suddenly there like a miraculous vision, tossing me a life ring from the rowboat. I hugged it to my chest and rested my chin on it to keep from going back under. He threw me a rope then he and Tom towed me back toward the small sandy beach beside the dock. Tom stayed with the boat as Robert helped me walk to shore through the last few feet of water. My parents ran down the hill carrying towels and blankets, with Benny leading the charge, barking all the way. I was shaking and coughing so hard that I could barely stand upright. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering as Mom draped a towel over my back and Benny jumped up and licked my face.

  “Oh honey--are you okay? What on earth happened, Robert?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see. Tom and I found her ‘way out in the middle of the lake.” Robert was pale and shaking quite a bit himself. Dad squeezed his shoulder.

  “Well, thanks kiddo--sure am glad you guys spotted her when you did.”

  As Mom rubbed me do
wn with the towel, I managed to find my voice.

  “I wanna go home.”

  “Aw, sweetie. You’ve had a shock--it’s okay. It’s a long drive to start now. We’ll go first thing tomorrow morning.”

  My eyes burned and welled up, overflowing hot tears onto my cheeks.

  “No. I wanna go home now.”

  Mom cast a look at Dad. “What do you think, Dan?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t see why not. If we get going in the next hour, we can be back by ten or so. I think Jilly just wants to be in her own bed tonight, right hon?”

  I nodded. No way did I want to be sleeping next door to Grandpa again.

  “Poor Jilly,” said Dad. “Put your arms around my neck, honey. I’ll carry you back up to the cottage.”

  Benny stood stiff-legged on the log steps leading down to the dock, growling deep in his chest. As Dad lifted me, I shot a look back over his shoulder. Grandpa was slumped over snoring in the lawn chair… pretending that he hadn’t just caused me to nearly drown.

  Knowing no one would believe me, I didn’t tell my parents what I really thought had happened. I’d jumped. I hadn’t been pushed. How could I explain how I felt when I didn’t have any real proof or a witness? Luckily, I didn’t have to see Grandpa again that summer: I missed the August family visit to the cottage while I was away at camp. Thanksgiving was never a big deal for us as an extended clan. We’d all just have a turkey dinner with our immediate family and alternate hosting Grandpa so he wouldn’t end up on his own for the weekend. That year, turkey duty fell on Uncle Chuck… and that meant it was our turn to have everyone over for a big family Christmas dinner, and then Grandpa would stay for the holiday break. He’d be under our roof for at least a week and I didn’t see how I could manage to avoid him in such tight quarters. My lucky streak had run out. It would be the longest week of my life… if not possibly the last.

  It was five days before Christmas. Mom, Dad and I spent the afternoon fighting crowds at the mall. I was not in my usual holiday spirit: I didn’t line up to sit on the fake Santa’s lap for a photo, and barely touched my hot chocolate in the food court. I leaned my chin in my hand and slumped over the Styrofoam cup, poking at the skin forming on the cooling surface with a plastic spoon. Mom peered at me over her coffee.