The Inheritance Paradox
One (My Story)
“DOES MOM HAVE a Goodwill bag here somewhere?” I asked. I was trying to sort through old clothes in Dad’s closet. It was the first step in what I knew would be a long process of downsizing.
“Don’t go putting that in the donation bag! That’s a perfectly good suit,” my father said, pointing at the old black suit I was holding.
“Dad, you haven’t worn a suit in ten years,” I complained.
Getting the amount of crap in my parents’ house reduced was going to take forever. Fortunately, we’d started well in advance of when they needed to move out.
“You’ll need something to bury me in,” Dad growled.
Shit! That was a low blow.
“You’ll probably outlive me,” I said. “Dad, you aren’t moving because you’re getting ready to die. Please don’t pull that kind of thing on us. You said the place was too hard to maintain. You and Mom want to travel more and not be tied down here. You shopped for that cottage for a year, and you love it.”
“It’s too much for you to maintain,” Dad sighed. “Nathaniel, I don’t hold it against you. It isn’t fair for us to expect you and Brenda to run around fixing the plumbing, or mowing the grass, or cleaning the house. You’ve got a lovely home of your own and we’re proud of you. There would be no reason for you to want this one instead. It was wonderful when we were a young family, but your sister isn’t even in town to help, and we talked to her about whether she wanted the place. I know what a strain it is for you. I’m not senile, no matter what you might think.”
“I don’t think you’re senile, Dad. Really.”
Well, I wasn’t absolutely sure. Dad always liked to tell stories. I’ve always loved listening to them. Someday, I’m going to write one myself. It’s just… He treats these stories he tells as if they actually happened to him—like they’re the stories of his life. As he’s aged, he’s become more adamant that even stories that happened in the twelfth or thirteenth century were really happening to him—as if he was a time traveler of some sort. Mom’s no help. She just says lots of people have past life experiences they remember. Yeah. She’s kind of woo-woo, too. You see what I mean.
Listening to his stories when I was a kid and seeing the size of his personal library and love of books, was part of what convinced me I wanted to be a writer. I even went to college and majored in English with an emphasis in creative writing. Really a useful degree. I’ve heard the ‘Do you want fries with that?’ joke a million times.
But I proved it was a useful degree. I work at a medical equipment company as a technical writer. I document new technology, write instruction manuals, and even contribute articles on health for the website. Doesn’t that make me a writer?
I just don’t have the same gift for telling stories my father has. And after spending eight to ten hours a day struggling to comprehend what the engineers and scientists are working on so I can document it in English real people can understand, I just don’t have the energy or desire to park in front of a computer and write something creative. I’m written out by the time I get home.
Besides, I want to spend what time I have left from work with my family. I don’t like working late hours and missing dinner with the kids. They’re teenagers now—sports, theater, band, dating. I don’t think either my sister or I were that big a burden on Mom and Dad when we were teens, but I don’t remember a single time Dad missed an event either of us was involved in. He attended the spelling bee, the science fair, the ball games, and everything else. Having sat down as a family for every evening meal of my childhood and teens made me committed to spending time with my own kids.
“What was all the shouting about?” Mom asked, coming into the room where I was still holding Dad’s old suit.
This thing had to be at least as old as I was. Maybe I could get him to go shopping and buy a new one. It was a little threadbare.
“He wants to put my suit in the Goodwill bag,” Dad whined. Oh, wow! Now I know where my beloved daughter learned the fine art.
“Oh, no,” Mom said. “You can’t do that.” She took the suit from me and brushed imaginary lint off it. Then she returned it to the closet. She shuffled through Dad’s clothes and pulled a black shirt out, moving it to be next to the suit.
“What’s so important about that suit, Mom?” Brenda asked.
My beautiful wife! She absolutely adores my parents—especially Mom. Mom stepped in when Brenda was desperate. She was orphaned when her parents died in an auto accident. She was about twelve then and was passed around from foster home to foster home until she ran away.
I saw her on a street corner in the rain one night as I was driving home from college for the weekend. I don’t have a Lancelot complex, but I couldn’t drive by without stopping to help the poor girl crying in the rain. She had nothing but a little bag slung over her shoulder.
I parked and ran back to see her. Well, that was scary, I suppose. Kind of for both of us. I kept my hands where she could see them and didn’t get too close.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Stupid question. “I mean, is there anything I can do to help you? Do you need money? Food? Clothing? I mean, you’re just standing in the rain.”
She looked at me as if I was crazy. Maybe I was.
“So are you,” she spluttered.
Well, yeah. I’d just parked and ran to see her.
“Yeah, we’ll both be soaked to the skin. Let’s go into McDonald’s across the street and get dry. I’ll buy you a burger or whatever you’d like.”
“Really? I’m not a whore.”
“No! I’m not offering to buy sex. I just… My Mom would kill me if I just left you out here on the street and didn’t try to help. Come on. Let’s get out of the rain.”
I just led and she followed me across the street and into the burger joint.
“Are you hungry? Can I get you some hot chocolate at least? A burger and fries?”
She nodded, shivering. I stepped up to the counter and ordered enough food for both of us and some extra, too. I took the number they gave me and led her to a table.
“You’re soaked through to the skin. I’ve got clothes in my car. Let me get something for you to change into. You just grab our food when they call the number, okay?”
“Okay. Are you real?”
“Yeah. And I’ll be back in a jiff. Don’t give away my part of the food!”
“Okay.”
I ran back to my car and pawed through my stuff. I was twenty-one years old and on my way to my parents’ house with my laundry. Heck! It was dry. That’s what was important, wasn’t it? I grabbed sweats as being the warmest thing I had with me. I had a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts that didn’t smell too bad. I even grabbed my towel. It was in the laundry, but it was dry. I bundled the things together and ran back into McDonald’s. She was just carrying our tray to the table.
“Here we are,” I said. “Grab a few bites and then go to the restroom and get dry and changed. Just wrap up your current things in the towel when you’re done. We’ll get them washed and dried. Um… I’m Nathaniel, by the way.”
“I’m Brenda,” she said.
She was sniffling, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or if she was crying. She gulped down most of the hot chocolate and then took the clothes to the restroom. I went back to the counter and ordered two more hot chocolates. While she was gone, I used my cell phone to call Mom.
“Mom, I just found this girl standing in the rain soaked to the skin. I think she’s homeless or something. I’ve given her some clothes and bought her food. What else should I do?”
“Nathaniel! Are you okay?” Mom asked. Trust her to think of me first.
“Yes, Mom. I just think this girl needs something and I don’t know what else to do. She’s just a kid, Mom.”
“Oh, my Good Samaritan. We need to assess what she needs and then find a solution. She could be a runaway with people worried about her. Is she with you now?”
“I gave her some of my clothes and she went to change in the restroom. I mean, she was soaked to the skin, Mom. I stood out there long enough to get wet, and it was only a couple of minutes.”
“Okay, just stay on the phone until she gets back to you. I want to talk to her.”
“Her name is Brenda.”
I handed Brenda the phone as soon as she returned to the table and told her my mom wanted to talk to her. I won’t go into too much detail, but the next couple of hours changed our lives. Mom and Dad drove up to East Lansing from Ann Arbor and picked Brenda up. I followed them home. None of us thought it was really right for her to ride in my car until we all knew more about each other.
I’ll just say that Brenda didn’t leave Mom and Dad’s house. They applied to the State for custody because she was only sixteen. My sister Megan was only eighteen, but she was already at Harvard for her junior year. She’d only be a year behind me when she graduated.
Sorting Dad’s clothes for donation, Mom was in control again.
“Oh, honey! Dad wore this suit on our first date. And he wore it for our wedding. Why, he even wore it to your wedding! And if this is the suit he wants to be buried in, I agree completely,” Mom said.
Oh. I guess I’d been told not to touch it.
“Was that the same black shirt, too?” I asked.
It seemed every family photo had Dad in a black shirt. Sometimes he had a tie, but usually it was that same banded collar.
“No. Or I don’t think so. Your dad had a lot of those black shirts in the eighties,” Mom said.
“I guess it was just the rebel in me,” Dad said. “I couldn’t afford a leather jacket. Now these old jeans can be donated if you think anyone would wear them.”
It seemed like he was moving us past the suit conversation. That was closed. I took the jeans from him and held them up. The side seams had been split from the hem to the knee, and a wedge of paisley cotton was sewn into it.
“Dad, did you ever throw out an article of clothing in your life?” I asked. I looked at the back and there were two colorful patches sewn into the seat of the pants.
“Well, of course I did. Things wear out. Especially anything I got after about 1990. They don’t make clothes the way they used to.”
“That was also when I told him if he needed patches on his clothes, he could sew them himself. I had two children to take care of and didn’t need him to be a third,” Mom laughed.
“Well, I’m not going to be pigheaded about keeping things. Let’s just clear out anything else you don’t think I need,” Dad said.
“It doesn’t make a difference what we don’t think you need, Dad,” Brenda said. “You can keep anything you want. We aren’t trying to make you get rid of stuff if you want it. That cottage we viewed had big closets in it.”
“You’re a good daughter,” Dad said.
One might assume that was a passive aggressive criticism of me as a son. It wasn’t. I’ve been in my father’s presence long enough to know when he’s being critical. It’s not often. It’s more an illustration of how open and transparent he is about most things. He meant purely that Brenda was a good daughter, even though she’s his daughter-in-law. I don’t know how their relationship could be closer. Mom and Dad love her every bit as much as they love Megan and me, or my children.
We got a lot accomplished during the afternoon, but none of us was trying to get everything done at once. We had time until their new cottage in the retirement village was finished. Pretty cool concept—small homes where retirees could live independently but have all the services they might need at hand. The village and accompanying apartment building were next door to a regional hospital. In the apartment building, there was a dining room and anyone who wanted to traipse across the parking lot could have dinner there. Or dinner could be delivered to the cottage.
Staff people stopped by each day, just to be sure everyone was okay and that nothing was needed. Groundskeepers took care of the mowing, shoveling, and exterior maintenance, while there were people on call to resolve any interior issues, like plumbing or heating. I was glad Mom and Dad could afford to live in the place. They’d make enough off the sale of the old house to pay for years in the retirement village.
Brenda and I were still talking about the day and how much there was to do as we got ready for bed.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Brenda asked as we settled down together.
“Oh. Is it? I guess maybe it is nearly.” I snuggled up close to her and began kissing her neck as I nudged against her.
“Nathaniel! You know what I mean!” she giggled.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” I said, rolling back to my side of the bed.
“You don’t have to stop,” she teased.
I rolled back toward her and she met me half way with a deep kiss. Brenda has always been a willing partner, ever since we were married. That will be twenty years in June. And that wasn’t as soon as we met. Remember, she was only sixteen back then. We didn’t really start dating until she was nineteen, and we were married two years later. Knowing how much she loves my parents, me, and our children has never been an issue in our relationship.
Sometimes when I look at her, I still see that nearly drowned waif I dragged off a street corner to feed. I’m just so filled with protectiveness that I know I’d do anything for her. Now I was forty-four and she was thirty-nine, but I’ll always see her that way. We made love like it was our first time. When I was sure she’d gotten all she wanted, I just held her and whispered how much I loved her.
“Moving your parents,” she said.
Sometimes it takes me a minute to catch up with where her mind is. She was just going back to the conversation about it being hard. I just nodded.
“Sorting out all the things from the old house. Even getting the house ready to sell. You technically lived there until you graduated, and I’d lived there for three years before we started dating,” she said, holding me tightly so I didn’t roll over and go to sleep.
“I suppose so. I’ve been so focused on getting Mom and Dad ready for the big move that I haven’t thought about what it means to me. I’ve found a few things of mine I’ve tossed into a box to bring home and sort. I know it must be a lot harder for Mom and Dad. I try not to get impatient,” I said, caressing her. “I keep thinking one day it will be Zach and Lisa who have to go through all this with us.”
“I even packed a box of my stuff, too,” Brenda said. “I didn’t have anything when I moved there, but I’ve found a whole box of stuff I left behind. We should take the opportunity to start downsizing, too.”
“And Megan’s stuff?” I asked. My sister had been in college in Boston when Brenda moved into her room.
“She told me to just toss anything I came to, but I can’t do that!” Brenda said. “I know some of those things are precious to her. She’s just so wrapped up in her work right now, it’s hard for her to think of anything else. I wish she was here with us.”
“She’s planning to spend two weeks here for Zach’s graduation next month,” I said. “I know she’ll still be working remotely late at night, but she’ll do her best to get Mom and Dad ready.”
“Do you think Dad is having problems letting go because he’s afraid it will all be forgotten? The house itself is part of his story,” Brenda said. “I mean, Mom said it was a family property.”
According to Dad, he and Mom didn’t have two nickels to rub together when they met. He was thirty. Mom was twenty-four. I could never figure out how they afforded the house. Dad’s cryptic reply was just that it came from his past and was a family property. Regardless, they’d lived there forty-five years and there was no mortgage on the property.
“I wish I could ferret out what Dad’s past really was. The stories he tells…”
“Maybe if you wrote them down, it would make him feel better. Like the past wouldn’t just be forgotten,” Brenda said.
“How do I separate the real from the fiction? Like when he fought with some farmer in Scotland because he wanted to take his daughter away to save her from the witch hunters?”
“It’s an exciting story. Why not write it down? Treat it all as if it really happened. Maybe Mom’s right and it was past life memories,” Brenda said.
“I just wish I knew more about who he really was. I mean, since he married Mom, everything is pretty clear. There were no past life stories after they were married. But he was nearly thirty when they met and none of his fantastic adventures even came in the years before they met.”
“You could investigate. Research it on the internet. Find his birth certificate and start building the story from there.”
“Hmm. His father died in ’76. Grandma passed when I was about ten—must have been 1990. I suppose I could find more info,” I mused.
“Just be sure you really want to know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I asked Mom about it a while back. She said he’s always been unwilling to talk about life before they met—there was too much to think about after they met. You know the singer they called The Man in Black?” Brenda asked.
“Johnny Cash? Yeah. What’s he got to do with it?”
“Mom says Dad always dressed in all black. She thinks maybe he was in prison before they met. It’s possible.”
“Hard to imagine him doing anything illegal, isn’t it? He’s always been so strait-laced,” I said.
“Maybe that’s why.”
The conversation petered out as we drifted off to sleep. My dad in prison? I really needed to investigate this.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
