Author: zpotter

It was the mention of the mill fire that fit the pieces together for me. The greatness of the man I’ll leave for history to decide.

“Mr. Holmes. Santiago’s father is my father.”

“Yes, Santiago’s father is your father.”

“But how?”

“Are you sure you want to know? You aren’t too upset?”

“Upset? No. Surprised? Yes. Processing? Sure. I’m glad you told me, but now I feel like I have to know how it all came about.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have known it to look at him because by the time you were old enough to distinguish features, his had been changed by the hard drinking and hatred, but Santiago Holmes was a good looking boy. He had the sharp, angular face and slim, sturdy build of his father, who I had my heart set on from the first shift I worked at the Tavern.

“Mr. Holmes was always so kind and generous with everyone who crossed his path. My first night working at the Tavern, I was waiting tables. I must have been a scared 15 or 16 and I was even more terrified because I knew how important everyone in the room was and Pap was on his stool at the bar. He said he’d come in to see if I was any good, but I know he was there to make sure no one gave me a hard time. “I was shaking because I didn’t want to embarrass him and it was my first shift. It didn’t help that the Tavern manager assigned me Mr. Holmes’ table.

“Mr. Holmes was eating with some businessmen from out of town, men he was hoping would invest in the mills. My manager, Steve, had reinforced how important the table was and had told me it was going to be the only table I had that evening. 

“Two of the regular girls had called out that night, so he decided giving me one table and handling all the others with Simone and himself would be better than giving Simone the one table and having me help him at all the others. 

“I was bringing waters to the table, and as I was setting them down, I poured the last one, Mr. Holmes’, right into his lap. I died on the spot. There wasn’t a hole big enough for me to crawl into. Steve was there in an instant, stumbling over himself to apologize and blot Mr. Holmes. I stood frozen in fear.

“Mr. Holmes could not have been kinder. He smiled and held up a hand to get Steve to stop speaking. He said it wasn’t a problem, but I remained frozen in place staring at the floor. At that moment, he did a strange thing; he grabbed my right arm in his left hand, he had huge strong hands from working in the mill as a boy, and pulled just a little so that I was forced to take a step toward him.

“I lifted my head up and saw his eyes shining with mirth and a smile spreading ear to ear. The rest of the noise of the restaurant disappeared when he looked into my eyes. ‘Linda,’ he said, ‘it’s okay. Accidents happen. These fellas here, they were going to give me a good soaking anyway, you’ve just beat them to the punch,’ and his laughter boomed around the table, causing the men with him in a kind laughter.

“Steve tried to pay for his meal, but Mr. Holmes wouldn’t hear of it. He also told Steve he’d be disappointed if I wasn’t there to wait on his table the next time he came in. I’d never seen or met someone as gracious, generous and kind as Mr. Holmes. I was hooked on him.

“Through the next couple of years he would come into the Tavern a few times each week, sometimes with his wife, more often with businessmen from out of town and on occasion business people from town. He was always trying to convince people to bring business to the town, or help the town out by investing in the mills.

“During the business dinners, he would request a table in my area and over the years we developed a playful banter. Nothing happened between us, but I was infatuated with him. I’m sure anyone watching me would have been able to tell, but I’m not sure he noticed. I never took my eyes off him and would go a deep scarlet whenever he favored me with a smile.

“Yes,” I breathed in relief. She had once again saved me from my awkwardness by reading my mind. I felt lighter with the question out in the open.

“No, he wasn’t your father. I’m sure he would have liked to have been. I can still see the way he looked at me when we were in high school. I know he had a hard crush on me, but I had my heart set on another.

“No, I cared a great deal for Santiago, in particular because of that night, but also because of how he cared for this family. He loved your Gram, always bringing around a sweet for her on Sunday nights. He was such a good work partner for Pap and when your Gram died he took on more and more of the work.

“Neither one of them would have told you this, but Pap lost his way when Gram went. The rock that kept him balanced was gone from his life. His work became shoddy, he knocked over a couple of headstones with the riding mower, and once he even flooded the lower half of the cemetery by dragging a water spigot out of the ground with the back of the rider.”

“I thought Santiago did those things? He told me he had when Pap let him do the riding, but on the condition he was sober.”

“That may have been what he told you, but the truth was it was Pap. Pap was so distracted by Gram’s passing, he just couldn’t focus on much. You wouldn’t have noticed it much, and by the time you went to work for him, the two of them had a pretty good routine down. You see, Santiago even cared for you.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, you never saw your Pap weak in any way, Santiago took the blame in the stories he told you, because it was expected of him. Beyond that he loved you. He just didn’t know how to show it.

“It was that goodness that no one else saw in him, those gestures for Pap and our family, that meant so much but still, that wasn’t why I cared for him.”

The night had covered us, the light was gone from the deep blue sky now dotted with stars. In the city, there were no stars, just concrete and neon.

Maybe Ma felt the same safety I felt in the dark. Maybe she felt it was time to unburden herself of this story. Maybe she thought it was the right point in my life, or in hers. Maybe a thousand different maybes. Who knows why we choose to do the things we do when we choose to do them.

I felt her turn towards me as she took my hand in the dark. I looked at her and smiled.

“I know you’ve wanted to know your entire life. I don’t know why I haven’t told you. At first it was because I thought you were too young. Then maybe it was fear you’d be disgusted with me. Or maybe that you’d hate me. But I think I haven’t given you enough credit for understanding?

“I don’t know why now feels like the right time, but as I look up and see all those pinpricks in the sky, I can’t help feeling small. That feeling is such a wonderful reminder of how large the universe is and how short a blip our lives are in the actual passing of time. There isn’t time for carrying these secrets. You’ll feel how you feel. I can’t control that, and I don’t want to.

“I am tired of carrying this secret around; of keeping it from you. It’s only fair to ask if you want to hear it?”

“Ma, please, tell me,” I squeezed her shoulder in the dark.

She took a breath to collect herself, “Santiago Holmes was your brother.”

“He was what?”

“Well, your half-brother.” I could feel her smile at my surprise.

“My brother? But he was so much older than me?”

“Do I need to explain how a baby is made?”

“No, but, that would mean – wait, am I adopted?”

She laughed at this. “You are not adopted. How could you be? Your eyes are carbon copies of my own, you know this. No, your father died in a fire in the mills, just like I’ve always told you. He was a great man.”

“Billy Braithwaite could never look me in the eye again. He went back to school right after that night, and didn’t come into the Tavern again. People of his ‘station’ didn’t drink at the Tortoise, so I think he took to drinking at home by himself. I always thought that was why he never married. Who would want to live with a recluse?

“I saw him once, the day after the one-year anniversary of his incident with me. I was coming out of the pharmacy and he was headed in. I wouldn’t have noticed him except he was wearing a heavy sweatshirt with the hood up on a steamy August day. He looked away fast, but not before I saw two huge black eyes and a white bandage across his nose. I can only imagine what the sweatshirt was hiding.

“At that Sunday’s dinner I made mention of having seen him and the condition he was in. Gram gave her patented ‘oh dear,’ and Pap didn’t say a word; choosing to take a swig from his beer instead. Santiago let the hint of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth before wiping it away with his napkin upon receiving a look from Pap.”

Silence fell between us and we both went off with our own thoughts as the sun dipped down towards the Melanski. The slivers of river I could see through the trees glistened like fire. I thought about the mills, and my life.

I looked back on it in a new light that felt old. My emotions were always fragile. I was delicate. As I’d aged I’d assumed it was because I hadn’t had a father to toughen me up. My mother did her best, and she was as hard and tough as they come, but she wasn’t a father.

I looked up to Pap, but he wasn’t all that interested in me until I came to work for him, and by then it was too late. He’d already decided I was too soft and he only had a couple of years of life left.

Santiago had been the only other male in my life. He did treat me better than most of the other people I saw him interact with in town, but there was always a distance; more like an uncle or a much older brother. He’d sneak me beers and tell me stories of working in the cemetery, but he didn’t do any of the things I thought a father was supposed to; take me to ball games, get me to try out for sports, teach me how to work with my hands, tell me about life.

And still, a piece of me always wondered if he was my father and that’s why Pap let him work at the cemetery, and why he, Santiago, had treated me alright as a kid. Since I’d become an adult, whatever that is, I’d never had the courage to ask Ma. I’d asked all the time as a kid and her stock response was that he’d been an important man in Berwick who’d died in a mill fire years ago. 

That had always been enough, knowing he was important. It wasn’t now, but I still didn’t know how to ask, so I broke the silence, looking for an entry point.

“I guess that explains why Santiago was so angry when we buried Billy Braithwaite,” I said.

“Oh?”

I proceeded to tell my mother the episode of the burial and how it had driven the rift between us. She smiled when I told of Santiago urinating on the vault, shook her head and said, ‘Santiago’ with a false disdain.

“I’m sure he never would have told you this. He didn’t tell me until he had the diagnosis. Once a year after the assault had passed, he called Billy Braithwaite every day. Sometimes, if he’d been out late, he’d call in the middle of the night.

“He’d try to use a different phone each day, but called from the Tortoise most often. He never called from the cemetery, as he felt that would be a dead give away, but he assumed Billy knew anyway.

“He would tell Billy he was watching him and if he so much as looked in my direction or in the direction of another female, there wouldn’t be a person in the state who didn’t know what he had done that night.”

At this Ma turned and looked into my eyes. Her smile was sad, but her eyes were steel.

“I don’t want you to think any less of me, but I suppose I can’t help it if you do. I loved Santiago for making those calls. It’s awful, but the weakness and fear I felt behind the Tavern that night, I felt so helpless, and it was this one stupid man, boy really, who made me feel that way and knowing that Santiago put fear into him, well, it made me feel better.

“And knowing Santiago, when he said he called him every day, he called him every day. I’m sure it drove Billy mad.”

“Do you think that’s why he killed himself?”

“I don’t know why he did what he did, but I guess it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Why did Santiago call him? Did he say?”

“Not in so many words, but I can guess. I think he did it for Pap. I don’t think Pap ever wanted Billy to have a moment’s peace. Pap would never have said as much, but even at that point in time, he and Santiago had a good read on one another, so I’m sure he said something in passing and Santiago took it and ran.”

“Do you know who beat Billy up?”

“I don’t, but I’m sure you can guess.”

Her statement hung in the air as the darkness fell around us though the sky still held the gentle light of the gloaming. Crickets and other night creatures began their songs. I fought with myself, struggling to find the courage to ask the question I needed the answer to, hoping it was somewhere in the darkness.

“So that’s why you cared for Santiago once he got sick?” my voice sounded thin in the darkness, “because of how he protected you and then tormented Billy the rest of his days?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” my tongue tripped over the thoughts in my head, “of course it’s enough, and I’m not questioning why you did it. It just…”

“Seems strange because you can’t help remembering how miserable and angry he was and that those traits don’t deserve care, or love. And maybe, you’re wondering if I cared so much because you think he was your father.” I could feel her smile as she said this.