A family with a secret often has more than one. My grandfather had a girlfriend named Frances later in his life that I believed was a secret from my grandmother. I met Frances in his hospital room after he had a tragic car accident in which he struck and killed a child. That brought on an attack of emphysema.
I was summoned home from college because the doctors thought he was dying. When I got to his room with my mother, there was Frances (my mother’s age) sitting on the side of his bed. When he died a few years later, my mother gave me the job of calling Frances.
The Manicure
A young Korean man bends over me.
A shock of black hair hides his face.
He takes my hand in his.
I am embarrassed by the age
spots sprouting on my skin.
He clips my nails, oblivious.
To him, I’m just a client.
Then I recall my grandfather,
a lean, laconic farmer, gasping
through ravaged lungs in the hospital,
attended by the woman he had decided,
fearing death, he wanted me to meet.
Her name was Frances.
Frances from the feed mill.
She was my mother’s age.
Here, seemingly in secret
from my grandmother,
Francis held his hands in hers
and gently clipped his nails
as if seated at the feet of Christ.
This gesture, more shocking
than a kiss or exposed flesh,
silenced small talk.
The silence grew, divisive,
deadly, deft.
Connection to Recovery:
Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying: “You are as sick as your secrets.” Keeping secrets was part of the “don’t tell” rule of an ACA childhood. We didn’t tell what life was like in our homes. I wasn’t the only one to keep my grandfather’s girlfriend a secret. My mother was complicit too. It was she who handed me Frances’ phone number when my grandfather died. Keeping secrets was generational in my family.
The cost of keeping the secret was shame—shame on behalf of my grandmother and shame that I was not being honest. I allowed myself to be overpowered by an authority figure—my grandfather. I participated in a family drama. Today, I recognize the signs of drama and learn to step away.
PROMPT:
1.Write about any secret that you have kept for someone else,
particularly if you were conflicted and wanted to tell the truth.
2.Write about any situation in which you learned a secret that changed the way you felt about someone you looked up to.
3. If you have kept a secret, write a letter to the person you want to tell the truth to, even if that person is no longer living.
