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0:30

Oh,

0:34

wonder what these are, in

0:36

the precious... ...incredible

0:38

as they seem,

0:40

are not the results of mass hysteria.

0:47

You may wish to adjust the dial you're

0:51

currently tuned into. The

0:53

wrong station.

0:58

You may wish to adjust

1:01

the dial you're currently tuned

1:04

into. The wrong station.

1:12

You may wish to adjust the dial you're

1:17

currently tuned into. The

1:20

wrong station. The

1:22

wrong station.

1:38

Hey. Come on in. Oh,

1:41

uh, let me just move some of this stuff off the chair.

1:44

My daughter, Kiera. First year

1:46

psych at university. Parties

1:48

more than her mother and I would like, but she's

1:51

doing okay. What can you do?

1:54

Want some coffee? No? Well,

1:58

just grab a seat then. So

2:03

I guess you want to hear that story then, huh? No?

2:07

I said I'd tell it and I'll tell

2:09

it. I'm just not

2:11

going to enjoy it. Uh...

2:13

okay. I

2:17

guess I'll start by saying, I never

2:20

knew much about my dad's side of the family until

2:22

he died. My mom's.

2:24

Lots. Too much, if I'm honest.

2:28

They're Catholics, so there's about a hundred of them, and

2:30

they all live in BC, about an hour's drive from

2:32

each other. I spent most of my summers out

2:34

there as a kid, and got enough drama and politics

2:36

to last a lifetime. But

2:38

on my dad's side... Well

2:41

I've got one aunt and a cousin, but my dad

2:43

and my aunt never really

2:44

talked.

2:46

See, my grandfather

2:48

drank, and he died young,

2:50

and everyone in the family blamed everyone else. Probably,

2:54

I'm speculating here, because they all really

2:56

blame themselves. Well, you

2:58

probably know the kind of guy my dad was, not

3:00

the type to talk about his past or feelings or

3:03

anything like that. And

3:05

so beyond the stuff I just said, which I mostly

3:07

gathered from things my mom told me, I

3:10

didn't really know much about him until he died. Don't

3:13

think I really got to know him until I went through his stuff

3:16

after the funeral.

3:18

Yeah,

3:19

yeah, people tell me that's off in the way

3:21

of things.

3:22

Anyway, after he's

3:25

gone, mom gets in touch with me and

3:27

says she's going to stay over at his house for a few days and

3:30

sort through some stuff. And

3:32

since we haven't seen much of each other since Jessica and I moved

3:34

out of the city, she asks if we all want

3:36

to come stay as well.

3:37

Make it a

3:38

sort of family thing. So I

3:40

say, sure. No,

3:44

they hadn't been together for years. She

3:46

was telling his will in everything, and in their own way,

3:48

I think they still loved each other, but

3:51

she'd have been a lunatic to stay with him. And

3:54

he'd have been a lunatic to let her. You

3:57

can ask the question. I said

3:59

I'd tell you the story. story, and I'll tell you

4:01

this story." No,

4:04

no, he never hit us. I

4:07

think he was always afraid, though,

4:10

that that was a person he could

4:12

become. If you talked

4:14

to anyone he knew, you'd hear that he had a temper.

4:18

But it went deeper than that. I think

4:20

he had real anger issues, scary

4:24

ones. Don't think I ever

4:26

met anyone that angry in my whole entire

4:28

life. Growing up, we'd

4:30

always have these polka dots on the walls

4:32

where he'd put his fist through them, then patch

4:35

them up later. Never laid

4:37

a hand on either of us, though. At

4:39

least he never laid a hand on me, and my mother

4:41

says he never laid one on her. I

4:43

guess I believe her, but also

4:45

I guess he can never really tell in a situation like that.

4:49

But there was always the possibility.

4:53

He never hit us, and never threatened

4:55

to hit us. It was like the three

4:57

of us were living every day with the fear that one

4:59

afternoon he might completely lose control and put

5:02

one of us in the hospital. It

5:04

must have been terrifying for him. Christ

5:07

knows it was for us. Oh,

5:10

I didn't become conscious of any of this until a couple

5:12

years ago. Jess made me start

5:14

seeing a shrink, and it made a huge difference

5:16

in my life. Mother guys wouldn't

5:18

talk about that, but hey,

5:21

that's how it is. Unconsciously,

5:24

though,

5:25

I always knew.

5:27

Back when I was in kindergarten, it was still sort of

5:29

accepted to spank your kids. And

5:31

some people were saying, hey, you could do a lot of damage to your

5:33

kid that way, but as you might guess, my

5:36

dad was not one of them. 100%, that

5:38

was a guy who believed in corporal punishment.

5:41

Not criminals should be canes like in Singapore

5:44

or whatever. But in

5:46

spite of that, he never spanked

5:48

me. Not even once. It

5:51

was like he knew that if he crossed that

5:53

line once, just one time,

5:56

then that was it. There'd be no going

5:59

back. We'd all become one of those

6:01

horror stories you see on the news. So,

6:06

after I got a job and moved out at seventeen,

6:08

it wasn't long before mom called to quits

6:10

and got her own place too. Personally,

6:13

I think dad was relieved. So,

6:17

I guess that's all to say, going

6:19

back to the old bastard's place wasn't really

6:21

a

6:22

happy homecoming.

6:24

It was the family home, my

6:27

grandparents' place originally, and

6:29

in its own way, it was sort of a vacation for

6:31

Jess and Kiara and I. A few

6:33

days in the cities, nice when you live in the burps.

6:37

So, we take an afternoon to get settled in. Jess

6:39

and I have the master bedroom. Kiara's about

6:41

seven at this time, so she's got the pull-out couch

6:43

in the office, which had been my bedroom growing

6:46

up and dad's before that. We

6:48

order in Chinese and try to watch a movie on

6:50

TV, but dad sets

6:52

about a hundred years old with no cable or anything, so

6:54

it's basically either CBC or the

6:56

news in Spanish. Mom's

6:59

not staying with us, by the way. She's at home, about

7:01

twenty minutes away by transit. The

7:04

plan for the next day is, Jess takes Kiara to

7:06

the museum, and mom and I start looking for

7:08

the old man's stuff on our own. If

7:11

I'm not being clear, it's small doses

7:13

of mom for Jessica, sometimes. We

7:16

don't sleep that well that night, though. Kiara

7:19

has a nightmare around two, and it takes an hour for

7:21

her to get back to sleep. As a result,

7:24

I'm pretty crabby when mom starts leaning on

7:26

the doorbell at eight the next morning. But

7:29

that's life for kids. And

7:31

parents. I make bacon and

7:33

put on some coffee while mom gets started on the boxes.

7:36

Jess sneaks Kiara out the back door before mom can

7:39

ask the two of them to help for just a few

7:41

minutes. And then it's

7:43

just mom and I getting to work. Man,

7:46

it's actually a lot of fun in its own

7:48

way. You know, we're just down in

7:50

the basement, putting things in new boxes, unpacking

7:52

old boxes, and sorting things into piles

7:54

of keep, and throw away, and whatever.

7:57

Taking stuff out to the curb, and that. A

8:00

couple of years at that point since I've had some good one-on-one

8:02

time with my mom. So it's

8:04

nice. And at some point

8:07

that morning, we start talking about Dad,

8:10

and his life, and about who he was to her

8:12

when they were young. And

8:14

I start to realize how little

8:16

I knew him. Like to me, he

8:18

was just this tyrant. And after

8:20

that, this crusty old bastard. But

8:23

talking to Mom, I start to see this whole other side

8:25

of him. Now for her, when she

8:27

was just this 20-year-old from Tumbleweed, B.C.,

8:30

he was this dashing, mystery man.

8:33

She showed me some pictures of him from when they first started

8:35

going out. And he looks like a young Brando.

8:38

Like, Jesus, why wasn't I ever

8:40

that handsome? And then

8:42

somewhere along the line, we also start talking

8:44

about his anger. And

8:47

that's when she starts to tell me a little bit more about

8:50

his dad's drinking. He,

8:52

my granddad, wasn't a mean

8:54

drunk. Didn't have anything like

8:57

my father's anger, for sure. Otherwise,

8:59

I doubt Dad would have made it. That much anger

9:01

and alcohol?

9:03

Not safe.

9:05

No. Granddad was more of a

9:07

sad drunk.

9:09

He'd disappear for days on end, go

9:11

months without a job, drinking away the savings

9:13

in a dark room full of his own despair.

9:16

I think he had little affairs, too. Good

9:19

trysts with other drinkers from the church

9:21

or neighborhood, though my grandmother was never

9:24

the sort to give you a straight answer about that sort of thing. She

9:26

cared about appearances. Your

9:29

granddad, she would say,

9:31

just like a little whiskey now and then. Well,

9:36

now and then doesn't drop you dead at 55. But

9:40

because of all this, Dad had

9:42

to be the man of the house from the age of 10, working

9:44

full time at 15, never finished

9:47

high school.

9:48

That's something I never knew before, which

9:51

was probably a relief for the teachers. But

9:53

that amount of responsibility, that young, that's

9:56

a lot of strain.

9:58

And strain? You have to.

9:59

to do something with it, right? But

10:02

Dad also had to be better than his dad, to be

10:04

the man his mom expected him to be. And

10:06

so instead of drinking or screwing around or whatever,

10:09

he just took all that strain, and

10:11

he bunched it up inside him, and he carried

10:14

it around in his chest like a lipstick of dynamite

10:16

for the whole rest of his life.

10:19

Can you guess what killed him?

10:22

Bingo. Huge coronary.

10:26

Doctors say they never saw anything like it.

10:30

Anyway,

10:31

so mom and I are talking about all

10:33

this, and I start thinking about how

10:36

all of my shit comes from my dad, and all

10:38

of his shit comes from his dad. And

10:41

so the next natural thought is, okay,

10:44

so where did all his shit come from? And

10:46

I put it like that to my mom. And

10:49

that's when the conversation stopped called. Well

10:54

I don't know if this is how it really happened, or if I'm

10:56

just making things up in light of what

10:59

came later. But the way I

11:01

remember it now is this

11:04

shadow passed over her face, like

11:06

a sun behind a cloud. And

11:08

then her shoulders slumped, and she just said,

11:10

I

11:11

don't know, honey.

11:13

And then that she was tired, and we

11:16

should take a break for lunch. Well,

11:19

maybe it was odd, but I didn't think too

11:21

much about it. You know, fair enough.

11:23

It's been a long morning, and she's getting older. Why

11:26

wouldn't she be tired? Well

11:28

as I'm going up the stairs for lunch, she

11:30

stops to pick up this heavy, dusty

11:32

cardboard box. I

11:35

ask her what she's doing with it. Oh,

11:37

it's just a box of stuff we already looked through. I'll just

11:39

take it out to the curb. Are you sure? I

11:41

don't think I recognize it. Oh, yes,

11:44

it's just a bunch of your dad's old tactical manuals. Except

11:48

I remember the box of the manuals, and this isn't it.

11:52

And as I take a closer look, I notice

11:54

that the box is old.

11:57

Really old. Coming apart at the corners,

11:59

held together by

11:59

a by crumbling tape. The dust

12:02

on top is

12:03

matted, crusty,

12:05

black.

12:07

Now I start to think something's up because if

12:09

we'd looked at that box, the dust would have been disturbed.

12:12

And also my mom is not the sort of person who'd lose

12:14

track of which boxes were which. Just

12:17

ask Jess, she'll tell you my mom's methodical to

12:19

a fault. So

12:21

I say, you know what, you shouldn't be carrying

12:23

something this heavy. Let me bring it up. Oh,

12:26

no, no, honestly, it's fine. No, honestly,

12:29

I insist.

12:31

She halfheartedly lets me take the box and

12:33

I lug it upstairs and leave it in the hallway, saying

12:35

I'll deal with it later. And since

12:38

she doesn't make a fuss, I start to think maybe

12:40

nothing was up at all. Maybe she

12:43

did just mix up the boxes. So

12:45

we have lunch and do a few more hours

12:47

of work in the afternoon. I tried

12:50

to steer the conversation back to my granddad and

12:52

great granddad a couple of times, but every time

12:54

I do she just starts talking about condo board

12:56

politics. So eventually I drive

12:59

it. Jess and Kiara get home mid

13:01

afternoon. Mom hangs out with them for a bit while

13:03

I cook dinner and after the dishes are done, Mom

13:06

heads home. No, at

13:08

this time Jess is in the early stages of being pregnant

13:11

with Harris. So later in the evening she

13:13

gets this craving for ice cream and

13:16

I head out to the corner store to get some. When

13:20

I'm coming back up the street, I

13:22

notice something in the driveway.

13:25

That box.

13:26

It's tucked in among all the others that got put out,

13:29

like someone was trying to hide it underneath them. And

13:31

I know how Jess gets about old dust, so I'm

13:34

certain it was Mom. And

13:37

at this point I don't have the bandwidth to open it up and dig

13:39

through. So I grab the box, bring it back inside

13:41

and put it right back down outside the office where it

13:43

was sitting before. I'll find out

13:45

what the hell's going on with it in the morning. Well,

13:49

as you can probably guess, that did not happen.

13:52

We end up having another rough night. Dad's

13:55

mattress is well past shelf life and

13:57

Kiara's having nightmares again. And

14:00

this time, they're so bad she insists on sleeping with us

14:02

the rest of the night. So, once

14:04

again, I'm exhausted when Mom starts rapping on

14:06

the windows at 8 AM. Jessica's

14:08

pissed because this is supposed to be a vacation and

14:11

she should be able to sleep in. But Keira's

14:13

already bouncing around the house anyway, so I

14:15

groan and roll out of bed and complain about my

14:17

back and make some coffee and eggs. Once

14:20

again, Jess manages to smuggle Keira out the

14:22

back door before Mom can guilt them into helping.

14:24

Come on, honey, we're going to the aquarium.

14:26

But Mom, I hate fish. Ha

14:29

ha. Well, as

14:31

you can guess, by this point I've completely forgotten

14:34

about the box. Then,

14:36

as I'm waiting for Mom at the top of the stairs,

14:39

she walks out of the bathroom wiping her hands on her

14:41

jeans and... Then

14:43

just stops dead. Like

14:46

she's walked into a wall. And

14:48

her face goes...

14:50

Gray.

14:52

I've never seen anything like it before. Her

14:54

face just goes gray on the spot.

14:57

Hey, what's wrong? And

14:59

she looks at me and suddenly there's anger

15:02

in her eyes.

15:03

Not just anger.

15:05

Fury.

15:07

Why on earth did you put this picture up?

15:10

Picture? What are you talking about?

15:13

She crosses one arm across her body and points

15:15

with the other. No. On

15:18

the wall outside the bathroom door there's some old family

15:20

photos. Great aunts and uncles.

15:22

People who died before I was born, no clue who

15:25

most of them are. And she's

15:27

pointing at one of these photos and...

15:30

She's angrier than I've ever seen her in over 30

15:32

years.

15:34

Sorry, what? What are you so angry about?

15:37

This picture. Why did you put this

15:39

picture back up? And

15:42

the picture, the one she's pointing

15:44

at... It's this old sepia

15:46

photograph of a guy in a dark jacket. Sort

15:49

of a military looking coat.

15:52

What are you talking about? I didn't put that up. It's been there for years.

15:55

This picture

15:57

was not here yesterday. Well,

15:59

nobody... Nobody put any pictures up, so unless a burglar broke

16:01

it and started decorating the place, then it was already there.

16:06

See? And when I nudged the picture on its hook, sure

16:09

enough, there was a patch of darker paint underneath,

16:11

like the paint's been protected from the light for ages.

16:15

At this point, I start thinking that maybe Dad's death

16:17

has hit Mom a little harder than she thought. Who

16:21

is this picture of, anyway?

16:23

She's just

16:25

staring at it. Then

16:27

she shakes her head. Sorry,

16:29

sorry, you were right. Let's

16:32

just get back to work. She

16:34

seems rattled, so I drop it. We

16:37

head downstairs and get to work, and

16:40

before you know it, she's telling me how she ran into this

16:42

person who's a real idiot, and heard from that person

16:44

who's not doing so well these days, and whatever

16:46

happened to so-and-so, and

16:48

everything's fine.

16:50

And eventually, the pace of the work starts to slow.

16:53

You know how it is. You open a box to see if it's junk,

16:55

and then something catches your eye, and all of a

16:57

sudden you've been reading 1950s report cards

16:59

for forty minutes. Well, late

17:02

morning, and I've been sucked down one of these rabbit holes.

17:05

I'm elbowed deep in a box with my granddad's old

17:07

immigration papers. Born in England,

17:09

came over as a kid during the war. All

17:12

of a sudden, I straighten up. Something

17:14

in the papers has struck me as odd, and

17:16

it takes me a full minute to figure out just what

17:19

that thing is. Once

17:21

I do, it stands out as really

17:24

odd. Hey, uh, didn't

17:27

granddad come over during the war? Hmm?

17:29

Yes, that's right, during the Blitz. I

17:32

look at the document again, and blink a couple times,

17:35

making sure I haven't misread. But

17:38

these immigration papers say he came over in 45. Okay.

17:42

So? Well, the Blitz have been

17:44

over for years by then.

17:46

Got it.

17:48

You know, what can I say? I'm a dad, I know a lot of

17:50

facts about World War II. And

17:52

when I tell her I'm sure, she says,

17:56

well, that does seem a little strange, and

17:58

shuts right back up again. I

18:00

decide not to push it. With how

18:02

she's been acting, there's clearly something going on with

18:05

her, and so for the rest of the morning I just leave

18:07

it. We talk about some celebrity

18:09

gossip or something, and then we head upstairs to have leftovers

18:12

for lunch. I offer to take

18:14

care of the dishes, and when I'm done, I wander

18:17

into the living room and find her staring at a picture

18:20

hanging in the corner. An old

18:22

black and white family portrait. Mother,

18:25

father, daughter, younger son.

18:28

And because I'm an idiot, I open my

18:31

mouth. Was that one there

18:33

yesterday? And

18:35

then she turns to me, and

18:38

for a moment all I see is this deep

18:40

terror in her eyes. And

18:43

then I get really afraid because I start to think

18:45

maybe she's really losing it. My

18:47

mom's losing it. But

18:50

then she rolls her eyes and slaps me on

18:52

the arm. Real funny. Excuse

18:55

me, I'm just going to go to the bathroom. And

18:57

she brushes past me and heads upstairs to use

18:59

the second floor toilet. All

19:01

the way upstairs, even with her bad joints, even

19:04

though the bathroom with that other picture is

19:06

just a few steps down the hall. As

19:09

soon as she's gone, I take the black and white portrait

19:11

off its hook, and of course there's

19:13

a round patch behind it too, like it's hung there for

19:15

years. I take a

19:17

moment to study the picture. It's

19:20

the same man. The father in this

19:23

portrait is the same as in the photo hanging across

19:25

from the bathroom door, a couple years

19:27

older and with a bit of a beard, but the

19:29

same high cheekbones, the same square

19:31

jaw. A handsome

19:33

man, but like a young

19:35

Brando, even though the picture is black and

19:37

white and you can see just how clear

19:40

and pale his eyes are. I

19:43

flip the frame over in my hands, a couple

19:45

of names written in cursive on the discolored backing.

19:48

William, Elizabeth,

19:51

Mary, Clifford.

19:54

Must be names, huh? But

19:57

I recognize one of them. Clifford.

20:00

my grandfather's name. So

20:02

it's a portrait of his family.

20:04

My family.

20:06

Him, my great-aunt, great-grandmother,

20:08

and William, the

20:10

man with the pale eyes. My

20:13

great-grandfather. The

20:15

toilet flushes upstairs and I quickly hang

20:17

the portrait back up on the wall. I'm waiting by the

20:20

basement stair as my mom picks her unsteady

20:22

way back down and clutching at

20:24

the banister. After about

20:26

another hour of work and more celebrity gossip,

20:29

it's my turn to head upstairs and use the washroom. For

20:32

some reason, I follow her example and head up to the

20:34

second story. On

20:36

the way back down, I notice something

20:39

that I'd forgotten about.

20:42

Dusty books.

20:43

Waiting for me in the gray autumn light outside

20:46

the office where my daughter sleeps. For

20:49

reasons that I don't quite understand at the

20:51

time, the sight of it puts a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. But

20:54

now I've been reminded of the mystery and the bits

20:57

between my teeth, so I pull over a dining

20:59

room chair and sit down beside it and unfold

21:01

the dusty tongues of its lid. Revealing,

21:05

just a bunch of old papers, heaps

21:07

of disorderly letters written in illegible

21:10

cursive, I

21:12

shift aside a few piles and underneath discover a

21:15

sort of leather-bound scrapbook, and

21:17

the first page is a crumbling, folded document that reads,

21:21

George V. Across the Top, as in George

21:23

V. It's a commission granting

21:25

the rank of midshipman in his

21:30

Majesty's Navy to one William

21:33

Onslow.

21:34

Gentlemen, William.

21:37

Pale eyes, dark military-looking coat. Dark military-looking

21:40

coat.

21:41

Him again.

21:43

Looking at the date and doing a bit of math in my head,

21:46

I come up with the fact that he'd been crazy young

21:48

at the time. We're talking 12 or 13 on an active

21:51

warship. As I've learned

21:54

since, the Royal Navy didn't raise the minimum age of midshipman

21:56

until something like 1950. So

22:00

he was in the Navy. I never knew

22:03

that about my great-grandfather, or

22:05

anything about him, really. And now

22:07

I'm starting to think that this was something that had been kept from me

22:09

on purpose as a sort of pacifist thing. My

22:12

mom's a bit of a hippie, she's part of that generation. But

22:16

as I start plopping through this book, I forget

22:18

about all that, because I'm drawn into

22:20

the pages. All of these pictures

22:23

seep your photos from 1900-something

22:26

of life aboard ship and sundry reports of call,

22:29

strange locations, strange people

22:31

lost to the foreign country of the past.

22:34

And

22:36

there's this one picture that stands

22:38

out. It's taken

22:40

in, I don't know, Southeast

22:42

Asia or something, a beach

22:45

with dark blueish palm trees in the back. I

22:48

think the kid in this picture must be William because

22:50

he has these pale eyes and because in

22:53

his own strange way he looks a lot like how I looked

22:55

at that age. And there's a man

22:57

with him, standing really close behind

22:59

him with both hands on his shoulders.

23:03

And since it's a long exposure photograph, it's impossible

23:05

to tell what this man's face looks like because

23:08

he moved while it was being taken, and his features

23:10

are only a blur. And

23:12

all around them, it

23:15

takes me a moment to figure out what they are because your

23:18

brain isn't expecting to see what they are. All

23:22

around them, five or six on either

23:24

side, are these chest-high

23:26

wooden stakes, and

23:28

each one carries a human

23:30

head spitted like a melon. This

23:34

is the picture I'm holding in my hand when my mother

23:37

comes back upstairs.

23:39

You can't...

23:41

When she sees me holding this picture, it's

23:43

like she's going to break to little pieces. But

23:46

I guess she's strong. You'd have to be to live with my

23:48

dad for as long as she did. And

23:51

so she steps up to me, and calm

23:53

as anything, takes the picture from my hand and

23:56

folds it back into the book, and closes

23:58

the book and seals it with all the letters of the book. tears back inside

24:00

its filthy box. Then

24:03

she says to me, Honey,

24:06

I want you to take this box out to the curb. And

24:10

I do. But

24:13

when I get

24:15

to the curb, I put down the box

24:17

and then I stare at it for a moment. And

24:21

then I open

24:23

it up again. I take the

24:25

picture, tuck it into my pocket, and

24:28

only then do I close the box back up and walk

24:31

away. Why? I

24:33

don't know why.

24:35

Lots of reasons. More

24:38

but curiosity. A desire to preserve

24:41

some family history. He

24:44

was my great-grandfather. He

24:46

was a part of me. I don't know. Well,

24:50

when I get back inside, Mom's waiting at the kitchen

24:53

table. She put on a pot of tea,

24:55

asks me to sit down.

24:58

I think it's time I told you the truth.

25:02

I just

25:03

nod and sit across from her, accept

25:05

a cup of tea with lots of milk and sugar, and

25:09

then when she hands it across to me, a yellowed

25:12

old envelope. What's

25:14

this? It's for you to read. Unfolding

25:19

the lip, I find a stained letter, well

25:21

on its way to dust. It's written in

25:23

neat cursive and dated November 1944. Dear

25:27

Colleen. Who's Colleen? A

25:31

distant relative on your father's side. Her

25:33

family put up your grandfather when he came over from England.

25:38

What's that have to do with whatever's

25:41

going on? She

25:43

looks at me steadily, and it's

25:45

the look I remember her giving me when I scraped

25:47

my knees as a child or got my heart broken

25:49

as a teenager. Just

25:52

read the letter Edward, if you want

25:54

to. I

25:57

look down at the page. Dear

26:00

Colleen, the winding,

26:02

cursive. I hope this letter

26:04

finds you well. Have just received

26:06

word that William has been discharged and will be

26:08

returning to us after all. And

26:11

so I now have to ask something of you that goes beyond

26:13

all reasonable expectations. Will

26:16

you take Clifford in? Please.

26:19

He's seven now, the same age as Mary

26:21

was. I cannot go through

26:24

it again, Colleen. Please.

26:27

I cannot go through it again. In

26:29

desperation, Elizabeth.

26:35

Along silence as I reread the letter and

26:37

my mother drank her tea quietly on the other side

26:39

of the table, Mary,

26:43

the name from the back of the photo in the living room, my

26:46

grandfather's older sister. Seven,

26:50

the same age that Barry was. William

26:53

will be returning. In

26:55

desperation. In

26:58

a soft voice, my mother asked me, do

27:01

you understand? Without

27:03

saying anything, I folded the letter back into its

27:06

home and passed it across the table. After

27:09

that, I stood and went into the living room and

27:12

took down the picture that was hanging there, leaving

27:14

a pale circle in the paint. Then

27:17

I went to the bathroom, collected that photograph

27:19

as well. I brought

27:21

them both out to the curb and smashed

27:24

them and threw them in with the rest of the garbage. I

27:29

didn't throw away the photograph in my pocket,

27:32

though. Good

27:34

God, don't ask me why. He

27:37

was only a boy in that one. Still

27:40

only a boy. When

27:43

I came back inside, I ducked into the office and found

27:45

one of my old notebooks, hid

27:47

the photo inside for safekeeping.

27:51

And after that, my mother and I spent the rest of the day

27:53

trying to bury everything in hard work. We

27:56

made more progress in two hours than we had in two days,

27:58

and when Jess and Kara came back In the evening, Mom

28:01

didn't stay for take-out. She just said

28:03

she felt tired and wanted to go home.

28:06

Jess—and

28:07

this is one of the reasons why I love

28:09

her—immediately knew that something was up. So,

28:13

after she put care out of bed, she found me sitting

28:15

in the living room and poured us both a drink. And

28:18

waited until I'd told her everything. And

28:24

that night— No. No, I

28:27

said I'd tell you the story. No,

28:32

I don't need to take a break. All

28:38

right. All

28:39

right. That

28:43

night, I had strange

28:45

dreams. I still

28:47

remember parts of them. I

28:50

was standing in the living room, looking at that family

28:52

portrait hanging on the wall. But

28:54

I knew something was wrong in a way we sometimes

28:57

do in dreams, because I remembered that

28:59

I'd smashed the picture and thrown it out. It

29:03

had changed, though, because in this version of the

29:05

picture, Elizabeth was sitting off to the side

29:07

with her hands over her mouth, and

29:10

William was standing behind Clifford and Mary,

29:13

and he had both of his hands pressing down on

29:15

Mary's shoulders and somehow

29:18

he also had both of his hands pressing down on

29:20

Clifford's shoulders. And

29:23

he was smiling.

29:28

And then I noticed that in the background of the

29:30

picture wasn't some drawing room in England.

29:33

It was that beach in Southeast Asia.

29:37

And there was a pair of hands pushing down on

29:39

William's shoulders as well, a sailor

29:42

with no face who had stood behind him in the photo.

29:46

And there were a pair of hands pushing down

29:49

on his shoulders,

29:51

some other faceless man, and

29:54

above him another, and

29:56

above him another in infinite regress,

29:59

and all around. the children on the beach, those

30:03

quiet witnesses, the

30:05

severed heads, and

30:08

though the rest of the photograph was still, those

30:11

heads still slowly

30:14

bled. And

30:19

that was when I walked to hear my daughter screaming.

30:22

I lurched out of bed. It was like still

30:25

being in a dream. You want to run and go, but everything

30:27

seems hazy and insubstantial, and

30:29

you're dizzy and your whole body feels weak. I

30:32

tripped over some old box in the hall, fell

30:34

against some old photo on the wall, and cut my

30:37

hand on broken glass. Here

30:39

a scream rose to an even higher pitch, and

30:41

when I burst into the room, something

30:43

was crouched over her in the darkness,

30:46

and I shouted at it, but my voice came out

30:49

weak and half-strangled with fear. And

30:52

for something in the darkness turned its

30:54

face toward me, and all I could

30:56

see in the gloom was a pair of pale,

30:59

blue eyes, and

31:02

then Jessica turned on the light, and

31:06

there was nothing in the room but

31:10

the two of us and our crying daughter.

31:17

Jess doesn't. One

31:21

time some old university friends of hers came over,

31:23

and each of them drank a bottle of wine to themselves.

31:27

She told me she'd seen something after that,

31:30

but she denies it now.

31:32

Well,

31:34

I picked up my daughter and grabbed my wife by the

31:36

hand, and took them down to the car. We

31:39

had some cough medicine in the glove compartment, and

31:41

I gave care more than I probably should have

31:43

as a responsible parent, and

31:46

I drove us an hour and ten minutes back to our house. That

31:51

night neither Jess nor I said anything.

31:55

That night she believed it.

31:59

Kyra!

32:00

I don't think so.

32:03

I hope she doesn't. No.

32:06

No, I never talked to her about it. Because I...

32:09

Because

32:12

I wanted to end with her. I

32:16

want to be the last one who knows his

32:18

name. Well, the morning

32:21

after that, I called

32:23

Mom and drove back to the city to meet at her place.

32:26

Told her not to go to the house until I got there. When

32:29

I arrived, all she said to me was,

32:32

You saw him, didn't you? Yeah.

32:36

Yes, I did.

32:41

Well, we did go back, and

32:45

when we got there, the front

32:47

door was open. I'd slammed

32:49

it behind me the night before. I knew

32:51

I had. And when we

32:53

went inside, the

32:57

pictures were hanging just where they'd been,

33:00

in the living room and outside

33:02

the bathroom, the

33:04

glass on both frames intact.

33:08

The pull-out couch in the office was immaculate.

33:12

We'd left it in a tangle of sheets. Somebody

33:15

had folded up the bed

33:17

and left their box of things sitting

33:20

on top of it. That

33:22

photograph with the heads was

33:25

neatly propped up in the dust. We

33:29

took the box, the photograph, and

33:31

those pictures in the wall back out into the driveway

33:34

and doused them with lighter fluid and set them

33:36

on fire. Then

33:39

we sold the house for half its worth to some

33:41

development company who tore

33:43

it down and built a giant, ugly fucking

33:45

McMansion. Is

33:48

that it?

33:50

I hope so.

33:53

But sometimes I look

33:55

care, and

33:57

I think about the kind of father I've been, and...

34:00

I am.

34:01

I don't know. I just don't know. I hope that's

34:03

it. I hope that's it. The

34:25

Wrong Station is made possible with the generous

34:27

support of our listeners on Patreon. Visit

34:29

today at patreon.com slash thewrongstation

34:32

for an ad-free RSS, bonus episodes,

34:35

behind-the-scenes discussions and more. This

34:37

week's remastered episode, Family

34:40

Photos, was written by Alexander Saxton

34:42

and performed by Anthony Botello. Thank

34:46

you to Lauren Lehmann, Elmar, Library

34:49

Seraph, Matthew Eager, John,

34:51

Monica Grasso, the Archess, Michael

34:54

Benson, Catherine H., and Joshua

34:56

Fillion for helping us keep the lights... well...

35:00

off. The

35:02

Wrong Station is co-produced by Alexander Saxton,

35:05

Anthony Botello, and Jacob Duarte-Spiel, with

35:07

music composed and performed by Alon Citrin, and

35:10

arranged for the viola and performed by Viola

35:12

Schmidt. You can follow The Wrong Station on

35:14

social media, at thewrongstation, and

35:16

email us at thewrongstation at gmail dot com.

35:20

And until next time, thank

35:22

you for listening.