An Open Letter

It sat there on the kitchen table, opened, unfolded, stained. The pages yellowed at the edges, slowly freezing in time. “Dear Mr. and Mrs. Zbornik, It is with heavy heart and my deepest sympathy…” it started. I skimmed through it, to Johnson’s signature. It was bold and sweeping, but also tired in a way, stretched and thin; like the ink in the pen was going, like the soul of the man signing it was going.

I’d seen it before, when aunts and uncles congregated. They used to gather for weddings, arriving from whatever outskirt of the Midwest they’d escaped to; Denver, Michigan, Kansas City. Mostly it was for funerals now, those marched across our family in slow formation; unrelenting.

“Dad?” I asked out the back door. It was my father’s house, but not my childhood home. I always felt like a stranger, an interloper, here.

“Out here,” the old man said. No; he wasn’t old, he was the youngest of his siblings. He didn’t even get the senior discount at Denny’s. He let us know that when our children called him old.

He scooped dog shit onto a shovel with a stick. A cigarette hung from his mouth, slow curls of smoke wrapping his head as he distracted himself, as the nicotine penetrated his lungs. He’d quit plenty of times. Stress always called for a smoke.

“Hey,” I said; the universal Midwestern greeting. Valid for your parents, your lovers, your adversaries. Midwesterners don’t have enemies; not that we’ll admit to in polite company. There isn’t any other type of company in the Midwest.

“Hey,” Dad said, stowing the shit in a bucket. His big chocolate lab ran up to say hi. Virgil was nice enough, but he wasn’t the family dog. Virg came after I’d left home, after the divorce; he was my step-dog, we exchanged pleasantries as such.

“How’s it goin’?” I asked. I didn’t want to probe too hard. He’d open up when he wanted to; if he wanted to. We were alike in that, stubborn and slow to feel.

“Can’t complain,” he said. He sounded tired, more tired than usual. His normal upbeat undercurrent flowed at a trickle. “Lou should be here in a bit. Want something to drink?” My Aunt Louise was in from Kansas City, I wasn’t sure why. The open letter was a clue. Dad had left it out for me to find. Had he? Was it just a coincidence? We headed back to the kitchen, catching up awkwardly; like we always did.

My Aunt Lou is flamboyant. Well, she’s flamboyant for an Iowan. She wears purple hats, and fur coats, and smokes long, thin cigarettes that smell like cough drops. She’s plastic, after a fashion; quick with an overloud encouraging word without understanding the context of a conversation. Or maybe she does, and pushes at our sensibilities with practiced aplomb. It’s hard to tell if she has a persona of ditz, or if she’s mocking us with one.

“Jimmy!” She semi-squealed with a grand entrance. Dad hugged her, a half-beat too long; I noticed. Dad’s kitchen isn’t large, more a galley with a dollop of dining area where the kitchen table sits. The three of us consumed the space. Aunt Lou is a big lady, and I have the physique of a writer. Dad and Lou talked about her trip, about her son. I mostly listened. The letter sat on the table and stared at us all. It wasn’t upset. It waited patiently for its turn to be noticed. I glanced at it, watched it ruffle, twitch, in a breeze from the furnace.

“So,” Lou finally said as she finished the coffee Dad’s Keurig had shat into a cup, “I think I’d like to go see Daniel.” Not Daniel per se, Daniel’s grave.

“Sure,” Dad said, accommodating. He was more gentle with Lou than she deserved. That’s what happened with younger brothers of older sisters. Lou was a second mother to Dad, the only one he had now. The letter fluttered at us, waved, the table jostled as we got up.

The graveyard is a few minutes from NewBo, with a glorious view of Mt. Trashmore, the closed landfill that served Cedar Rapids for its first century. The headstone wasn’t a stone at all, it was a copper plaque, flush with the ground. Aunt Lou brushed away leftover leaves and dust from its face.

“He’d be retired now,” she said, stooped down to touch her baby brother; what she could touch of him.

“He could retire by now. I doubt he would,” Dad said.

“Yes,” Lou almost whispered. “Yes.”

“You,” Dad took a deep breath that lasted a life time, “should probably have this, keep it, you know?” he held out the letter, closed now.

“Oh Jimmy, I couldn’t.”

“I have Daniel, I can come see him whenever I need to. Take it. Have something of him. You need to see him too. Jumping into the car and driving all night isn’t sustainable. We’re getting old Lou.” Dad said.

Tears welled in my Aunt’s eyes. For a moment I saw her, who she really was, not the overloud ditz she pretended to be. I imagined it was who she had been when my father was growing up, before she’d hidden behind her mask. Her face softened, aged, the weight of a lifetime sank onto it. She looked truly happy, settled.

“Thank you.” She hugged Dad, not just for a half-beat too long, but for a whole orchestra, a whole concerto. I wasn’t long enough. It never could be.