Now I’d done it—confessed to knowing more than any littler girl should know. Any good little girl, that is. And of course I’d confessed to my highly dysfunctional family. No, I wasn’t old enough at the time of my confession to know the word “dysfunctional.” I just thought my family was special in ways that other families weren’t, which meant that I had to work harder to be worthy of being treated well by them.
But I’d really done it that Easter after my Bebop, who was my grandfather on my mother’s side, had passed.
They wouldn’t let me go to Bebop’s funeral. They said I was too young. Even though I cried and stamped my little foot and insisted that Bebop had been my friend.
The skin of my mother’s face had twisted into a scowly mask when she heard me say that the person who had beaten her and thrown her down the basement stairs when in drunken rages had been my friend. But he had. When I knew Bebop, he was soft-spoken and kind—which was a sharp contrast to the sniping, resentful actions and comments of the rest of the family.
My mother spent the rest of my childhood showing me just how horrible it was to grow up with an abusive parent. But, I digress.
After my parents spent hours arguing about where we would celebrate Easter, and after my mother dissolved into sobs that shook her pregnancy-swollen body, it was finally decided that we would spend Easter with her family.
So we drove a couple hours northeast to Mamaroneck, New York. As we climbed the long, steep hill to the plateau where my grandmother’s house stood, the muscles of my legs trembled as I anticipated running across the vast green of Nana’s lawn and exploring the woods behind her house.
When we arrived, there was the usual interminable spell of greeting and catching up, while I tried to sit still on Nana’s hard-cushioned couch. My arms and legs couldn’t keep still, though, twitching and flopping and fidgeting.
“Krissy, stop that!” my mother admonished. “You’d better be still or I won’t let you play outside.”
I looked out the bay window into the yard and heaved a huge sigh, willing my thrumming muscles to be still. Finally, I couldn’t be still any longer. If my legs and arms had to be still, my mouth had to move.
“I saw Bebop last night,” I chirped, loud enough so that the conversations between my mother, Nana, and my aunt and uncle stopped.
Nana’s eyes glazed with hurt as if I’d slapped her. I didn’t understand, being four years old, why she wouldn’t want to hear from Bebop. She missed him, didn’t she?
“You couldn’t have seen him,” my aunt, who everyone called Honey because she was so sweet, said. “You remember, he died a few months ago.”
“Yes, but I saw him,” I insisted. “He said he was sorry that he couldn’t spend Easter with us this year.”
“That is enough!” my mother snapped as she moved to stand in front of me.
Her hands were on her hips and her brow was furrowed into the glare I knew well. If we’d been home instead of at Nana’s, she’d have sicced my father on me.
“I’ve heard your lying stories for the last time!” she snapped. “No matter what you think, there is no way you could have heard from your grandfather. He’s gone! You have to accept that.”
I gulped and glanced around the room. Nana had left. My uncle George was standing off to the side, talking quietly with my father, who had his fists balled against his hips. Honey stood beside my mother, her outline creating a softer silhouette that encouraged me.
“I did hear from him!” I insisted, jumping from the couch and stamping my foot. “And I saw him, too!”
