The Things We Keep

            We kept things from each other. Just little things, then bigger things, then you forgot what you kept from whom, who in the family knew what to begin with, and what you weren’t supposed to tell at all. And just when you thought everyone in the family knew everything about everyone else, out it would come, the fact that Aunt Jane was pregnant when she married Uncle Bob, that Ellyn never did get her masters after all.

            Why we kept things from each other, I never knew. Seems to me like it would simply be easier to tell everyone the truth. Then you wouldn’t have to say sentences like, does Grandma know that Delbert’s in the hospital? or, Now, we don’t know if Momma knows this or not, so you better not say it around her.

            Somehow this never really struck me as gossip, sitting around in a circle at the family reunion, talking about the man Ellyn almost married, how she left him because he was a drunk, but told everybody she’d decided he wasn’t good enough to be the father of her children, that she’d rather date someone who spoke three languages instead of four, that four was rather pompous. Ellyn was nit-picky about the men she dated, so a ruse as silly as that seemed reasonable, but of course, when the truth was told, and the truth will be told, you know, she had really left him because he was a drunk and by left him, I mean left him, or didn’t you know they were already living together? Well, it wasn’t really something she told.

            The difference between what was told and what was kept was hard to tell. For example, we would tell that Momma had a biopsy, but we wouldn’t tell it when Aunt Jane had one. Or we’d tell it that Ellyn flunked her math class, but we kept the part about her masters to ourselves. It almost got to where you were afraid to open your mouth at all in our family, for fear you’d tell something you should have kept.

            Of course, there were people like my cousin JayDean, who told everything she knew anyway. The quickest way to get something around the family was to call JayDean and say, Now don’t tell it. Then it would spread like wildfire.

            With all this jocund formality, I never guessed there were real secrets in the family, things my mother actually didn’t know about my aunt, things my aunt didn’t know about my mother. My family was an open book, just one we pretended to shut a lot. There were no real secrets, just pretended ones whispered low. We said not to tell Grandma, to keep this one from Momma, but in the end she always discovered the truth and JayDean or Aunt Jane or whomever the culprit was would come clean—well, you know I just can’t keep anything from Grandma, it’s just so hard not to tell Momma something, she just sees it in your eyes when you got news, you know.

            This was how I grew up; this was how I was raised. Bits of information passed along with the serving plate at supper, little things at first, then knowledge that grew in stature beside you, information that got bigger with your body, skeletons that really started coming out of the closet, alive and dancing around the room. It wasn’t until I got my own place and moved away that I started to learn what our family was really like, that Ricky had spent two nights in jail for knocking down people’s mailboxes because his momma and daddy wouldn’t bail him out, that he really wasn’t counseling at church camp, that Ricky’d never been to church camp in his life and now he didn’t even go to church. That Uncle Melvin had an affair once, that he slept with the girl down at the Piggly Wiggly, the one that ran the night desk. Three years after I learned this, I found out they’d had a kid, that it was a little boy and that the Piggly Wiggly girl had moved to Alabama to escape rumors and shame. Now, whether Aunt Emeline knew was up in the air, but I wasn’t to be the one to tell her.

            Aunt Jane said she thought Emeline knew because when was the last time you saw her go in there?

            Well, I ain’t seen her go in the Piggly Wiggly for quite some time, but you know the drinks are cheaper down at the Sureway.

            So to figure out just how much Aunt Emeline knew, Aunt Jane would say something about the Piggly Wiggly around her to see how she reacted. Emeline, do me a favor and hand me that grocery insert out of today’s paper.

            Aunt Emeline leaned over and picked up the insert, eyes focused sharp on the section that tells who married whom. Here you go, Sister. Then she handed the advertisements to Aunt Jane who looked at me as if to say, See, she knows, you see how she can’t even look at that Piggly Wiggly ad? Kept her eye on the socials.

            But this wasn’t enough proof for my cousin JayDean. Naw, Momma, you can’t go by that, she told Aunt Jane. We need more proof.

            So one day while they were in the car, heading to town to get groceries, JayDean said, You know, Aunt Emeline, I saw we go to Piggly Wiggly this time; I hear they’re having a sale on T-bones.

            Don’t care about no sale on T-bones.

            What? Don’t you wanna get cheap meat?

            Well, Aunt Emeline took her eyes off the road and looked over at JayDean, Don’t tell it (Here we go, JayDean thought), but I can’t go there and buy T-bones.

            Why not? (This is it, thought JayDean. This is the jackpot.)

            Ellyn’s come home to visit this week and she’s on this big vegetarian kick. Something she picked up from her college friends and she said — now, don’t tell Momma — but she said she wouldn’t come home for Christmas if I brought any meat in the house while she was home. So if you don’t mind, I’d just as soon go to Sureway since the drinks are cheaper there. Then Aunt Emeline turned her head back toward the road and said again, Now, JayDean, don’t tell Momma. Ellyn’s agreed to eat meat over at Momma’s.

            Oh no, Aunt Emeline, I won’t tell Grandma. Then, of course, JayDean came back and told the rest of us, told everybody but Grandma, and finally Aunt Jane told Grandma just for spite.

            Now, JayDean, Aunt Emeline fussed, I thought I told you not to tell Momma.

            I didn’t tell her, I swear.

            Well then, who did?

            Momma.

            That’s why I always figured everyone knew everything about everybody else anyway. Because no matter how hard you tried to keep it from whomever it was supposed to be kept from, it wound up getting out in the end. Trivial or important, the things we kept became the things we told—whether the original teller wanted them told or not. We all knew about Uncle Melvin’s illegitimate child, Aunt Jane’s premarital pregnancy, Ricky’s brief stint in jail. There wasn’t anything you knew that everybody else didn’t know. That way none of this information came as a shock, none of it truly was a bother, just details.

            But no matter how shocking any of this information might initially be, the real killer, the true skeleton in the closet, my own grandma told me over tea. Grandma, the one the rest of the family fit and fought to keep everything from, looked me in the eye and said, JayDean’s daddy, as she leaned across the table, is not her real father.

            Grandma, what are you talking about?

            They think I don’t know things, she said. They think I don’t know what really goes on. I’m telling you, this one I know.

            Uncle Bob isn’t JayDean’s father?

            No. Grandma lowered her voice. Not biologically.

            Was she adopted?

            No.

            Then what do you mean?

            Your momma’s brother — my son — is not her actual father. She raised and lowered her teabag.

            Who is?

            We don’t know, teabag moving up and down.

            What do you mean, we don’t know?

            Well, Grandma’s spoon clanked in her cup, Her momma, your Aunt Jane, well, in high school she was loose. Had a lot of beaux. If you know what I mean.

            So they don’t know who JayDean’s father is?

            They got it narrowed down to one of five.

            Five?

            Want some more tea?

            Grandma, you got to tell me more. This is too good. Does JayDean know?

            Don’t you tell JayDean. She abruptly sat back in her chair.

            So of course, the first thing I did was run home and tell Momma. Momma, did you know Uncle Bob isn’t JayDean’s father?

            Where’d you hear that? Momma shut the kitchen drawer.

            Grandma.

            She’s not supposed to tell that.

            Well, is it true?

            Momma looked around like she was afraid someone was eavesdropping. Yes, but she’s not supposed to tell it. We keep that.

            What else do we keep?

            Never you mind what else we keep. You mind your own business. She reopened the drawer and started clanking around in it.

            I swear, Momma, you and Grandma both. Tell the whole world stupid things like Ellyn flunking math then keep something to yourself as big as a person’s real father.

            Jane elected not to tell anybody, Momma said without looking up. That’s her decision, not yours.

            Then how’d you know?

            I went to school with her. Everybody knew Jane ran around. All she wanted was attention.

            But, Momma, one of five?

            Five? Momma slammed the drawer. D’your grandma tell you that?

            Yes ma’am.

            Well, since you told me there were five, she leaned forward, I’ll tell you Bob wasn’t one of them.

            What are you telling me that for?

            Didn’t want you to think any less of your uncle, sleeping with somebody that was sleeping with everybody else.

            Well, all these years, I thought he was sleeping with her before they got married anyway. What difference do five more people make?

            The difference between hormones and trash.

            Later, after talking to Grandma and Aunt Emeline, I got confirmation that Uncle Bob was not one of the men Aunt Jane had slept with toward the close of her junior year, that one was a boy who moved right after graduation and the other four were still in town. DNA testing didn’t get popular until JayDean was already grown—she was born in the early sixties, after al —and it would have humiliated JayDean to take a test to see who her daddy was. But sometimes, Aunt Emeline leaned across the kitchen counter, Sometimes I wonder if she doesn’t already know and just acts like she don’t to please her momma.

            What do you mean?

            Well, the other day, when I was looking in the paper to see who married whom, I saw Jimmy Johnson’s anniversary announcement in the socials and made a remark about it and JayDean looked up at her momma and her momma looked at JayDean then she looked back at me like I’d better keep my mouth shut. Jimmy Johnson was one of the boys, you see. So I think JayDean knows something or she wouldn’t of cared that his wedding anniversary was coming up.

            Oh. But that’s not enough. You can’t tell from that.

            Well, then there’s that trip we took to the grocery together, back when Ellyn was home to visit.

            Yes ma’am.

            JayDean wanted to go to the Piggly Wiggly, said something about T-bones being on sale, some excuse like that.

            Okay? I looked at Aunt Emeline. What does that have to do with anything?

            Well, she was wanting to drop by and take a good look at Jimmy Johnson, try and figure out if he was her daddy.

            What makes you think that?

            Jimmy Johnson’s manager there.

            Maybe she just wanted a T-bone. I tilted my head.

            JayDean don’t eat T-bones, Aunt Emeline said triumphantly, She eats fillets. Besides, why else would she want to go to Piggly Wiggly?

            I don’t know. I leaned forward. Why wouldn’t you want to go?

            Have you ever been in there? Aunt Emeline leaned back. Just the nastiest grocery store I’ve ever seen, dead bugs all over the floor. They got stuff spilt everywhere, produce is rotten. And besides, the drinks are cheaper at Sureway.

            Oh. Is that all?

            Well, goodness, girl, what more reason do you need?

            Nothing. I—I just thought there might be something else.

            What else? She leaned toward me.

            Nothing, I said, shifting my eyes. I—I ain’t gonna tell it.

            Tell what? Aunt Emeline leaned in intently now, eyes focused on my face. What ain’t you gonna tell, Marie?

            This was it, this was the family’s best chance to find out how much Aunt Emeline knew about the baby. I just thought you might not like some of the people out there is all.

            Some of the people? Working or shopping?

            Working.

            Oh, that. Well, I know all about that. Ain’t no need to pussyfoot around it. Just a harsh reality of life.

            You know?

            Why, of course I know. Think something like that could slip under my nose? Something that big?

            Well, do you ever see the little boy?

            Little boy? Aunt Emeline looked confused.

            Yeah, their—it hit me, she didn’t know after all, she was talking about something else—their little boy—but it was all coming out of my mouth so rapidly, I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t control it. I was telling her something we kept, something we must keep.

            Whose little boy? She sounded insistent now.

            Nobody’s.

            Erin Marie.

            Nobody’s.

            You tell me. And our words started blending together, Aunt Emeline going You tell me, you tell me, is it Melvin’s, and me saying over and over again, You acted like you knew, I thought you knew, I wouldn’t have said a word if you didn’t make me think you knew, we were talking about JayDean’s real daddy, it just came out, I thought you knew. Aunt Emeline muttering over and over again, How could I not know? How old is the baby? How long ago? Is it the girl on the night desk that moved away for a while, the girl with the nappy blonde hair? My God, I said, I thought you knew.

            Aunt Emeline looked up at me, tears starting to fall from her left eye, only her left, and I thought I’ve never seen a woman cry like that, I’ve never seen a woman cry out of just one eye like that, like only half of her is heartbroken, like really and truly, only half of her didn’t know. Are you sure you didn’t know? Are you sure you didn’t already know?

            No. For years, I’d wondered, her left hand wiping away the tears, but I didn’t know. I knew there might have been an affair, but a child? No, Marie, I didn’t know.

            Then I realized why we didn’t always tell each other the truth, that sometimes truth can hurt as much as a lie and some skeletons in our family shouldn’t dance during dinner with the others, that some skeletons were dry, brittle bones that broke when you taped them, real, actual skeletons instead of Halloween costumes dressed up to look like secrets. These were the things we kept to ourselves, things that could be buried for years, but never forgotten.

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