Chapter III: Sam

            To be clear, using all three syllables of my sister’s name is akin to mom using multiple punctuation.  It meant serious business.  Even though I was her older brother, my ‘little’ sister out-massed me by about 10 pounds of muscle.  It’s been that way since she turned 15 and I was in my early 20’s.  Which is about the last time I dared call her by her full first name.  Not only that, she fights dirty.  But this was serious business.

            Sam came around the corner slowly glaring at me.  Mom’s curiosity was piqued so she stood behind Sam.  All I could see was her eyes peeking over Sam’s shoulder.  “What?” Sam said in a monotone that was surprisingly threatening.

            I didn’t care how tough she was at the moment.  “You broke the Elegant Elephant?” I asked pointing to the shelf where it should have been.  No more being covert about my mission today.  I noticed mom quickly retreat back into the kitchen.

            Sam’s face expression quickly changed and she looked at Curtis.  “So much for taking that secret to the grave,” she said quickly.

            “Well, grandma…” he started to say.

            “We all knew it was all of our graves.  All of ours.  Are we all dead yet?” She asked and I felt a little scared for Curtis.  He seemed to take it in stride though and flopped back on the couch.  His only response was to shrug his shoulders.

            I looked at the shelf and back at them.  “What do you mean, ‘all of ours’?  Who else knew?” I felt like I was on the outside looking in on some family secret.

            Sam’s body relaxed and she walked over to me.  She put her hand on my arm to comfort me.  “Grandma knew how special that…ugly, ugly thing was to you, for whatever strange reason, so we all agreed we wouldn’t say anything,” she glared down at Curtis, “EVER.”

            I listened to her explanation.  “Grandma?” I asked.  I put my hand to my head and massaged my forehead.  When was the last time I saw the elephant?  I was pretty sure I saw it at the gathering after the funeral.  Didn’t I?  My memories started to play tricks on me.

            Sam nodded her head.  “Grandma worked hard putting that ugly thing back together.  You were at school and she spent the day gluing all the pieces back together.”

            I stopped racking my brain. “What do you mean I was at school?”

            Curtis decided to chime in, “She broke it when she was, like, ten.”

            She looked at him.  “More like 4.  It was before I started school and I was dancing – putting on a show for grandma – and I lost my balance.  Went head first into the shelf and knocked that hideous sucker to the ground.  But I was okay though,” she assured me as if that would have been a question I would have asked.  It wasn’t.  “Just left me with this scar,” she held up her left hand.

            I wasn’t exactly focused on her well-being.  Instead, my mind tried to piece together when the last time I saw the elephant actually was.  “But that can’t be.  It was always on the shelf.  I saw it on the day of her funeral.  We all gathered here at the house.  I saw it on the shelf.” I pointed to the spot where I had last seen it.  “Two months ago.”

            “Yeah,” she agreed.  “I told you grandma glued it back together.  Of course, after that, it was placed in a slightly different location.  One shelf down and in the back.  A little hidden.  Plus, you would have been about eleven when it happened. If you were still staring at the revolting thing we would have been worried about you.”

            “Yeah, like you were going to be a future serial killer or something,” Curtis was trying to joke around but since his heart had just been broken his attempts at humor were misfiring.

            I ignored him.  “So, you’re saying you broke it a long time ago and no one told me?” I looked around the room.  “Where is it now?”

            She looked at me and then at Curtis then back at me.  “I have no idea.  I haven’t touched that nightmare-inducing thing since I was four.”

            “You sure?” I asked remembering what had started this all. “Curtis told me you told him it was valuable.  Did you sell it?”

            She stepped back.  “No!”  she thought about it.  “No, I did not try and sell it.  Who in their right mind,” she emphasized that for my sake, “would want that awful thing?  I wouldn’t have sold it even if it wasn’t broken and pieced back together.”

            I looked at her.  I wanted to believe her but after she took my resume and didn’t pass it along like she said she would, I wasn’t so sure.  “I get it,” I hissed a little more than I intended.  “You didn’t sell it.  And you passed along my resume to your HR.”  Oh, I guess I am going to bring that up after all.

It was a low point for me when I gave her my resume. Mac leaving me started a decline in my work performance. I had never really liked my job and after Mac left me, I couldn’t go through the motions anymore. I let deadlines slip by. There were several days in a row that I didn’t even go to the office. Finally, my manager thought it was best if we parted ways. I agreed. But then I realized I had nothing to fall back on. So, tucking my pride away, I handed my little sister my resume. And then she didn’t pass it along.

            “What?” she asked and looked away from me.  “I passed along your resume like you asked.  We just aren’t hiring right now.”

            I shook my head.  “Except I called to follow up and I was told my resume was never received and that your company is, in fact, hiring.”

            “Ohhh,” Curtis said and looked from me to her.  His expression made it clear the only thing he was missing was a tub of popcorn.

            Ever since I could remember, when Sam was nervous, she would do this thing with her hands.  She would rub the tips of her fingers together.  That’s how I could tell she was anxious at the moment.  The way she was rubbing her fingers together she must have been extremely agitated. 

            “What’s going on?” I asked.  “What aren’t you telling…” I looked at Curtis.  “Wait, do you know?”

            He shrugged his shoulders.  “I have no idea what is happening.  I am barely paying attention to anything at the moment since my heart was just broken.”

            I nodded.  “Since the whole broken elephant thing I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t left out of another secret.” I looked at her again.  “What aren’t you telling us?”

            She bit her bottom lip and scrunched her nose. 

            “Seriously,” I looked at her hands, “you are not going to have any fingerprints if you keep rubbing your fingers together.”

            She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment.  When she opened them, she said, “I was suspended from work for three months.”

            “WHAT?” I exclaimed loud enough for mom and dad to come back to the room to check on us.

            “Great,” she said looking at everyone.  “I guess I will be sharing my story to everyone right now.”

            “C’mon sis,” Curtis said.  “It’s just that kind of Thanksgiving this year.  Happy bad-news-giving.”

            “What bad news?” mom asked she held a mixing bowl and continued to stir whatever the contents were.

            Sam took another deep breath. “Okay, here it goes.  Shortly after my promotion, a co-worker filed a complaint against me.  She said I received my promotion by,” she closed her eyes and forced the words out, “ill-gotten gains.”

            “What?” mom shrieked.  “That’s ridiculous.”

            Sam stayed quiet.  “Right?” Mom asked and slowed her stirring.  “That is ridiculous.”

            “Of course,” Sam said.  “It’s just that I happened to have ended a romance with one of the board members shortly after being promoted.”

            “Oh,” I said, “that doesn’t mean anything.”

            “He was married to the co-worker’s sister at the time.  You know, the brother-in-law of the coworker that filed the complaint,” Sam explained.

            I was pretty sure my jaw dropped all the way to the floor.   “Oh,” I said slowly so it came out in three syllables.

            “I was suspended for three months while the case was investigated.  That’s why I couldn’t hand your resume to the HR manager at the time.”

            I shook my head.  I withdrew my complaint.

            A heavy silence hung in the room.

            “I was cleared,” she said quickly.  “All charges were discovered to be unfounded and false.”

            “So, you weren’t really seeing a married man?” mom asked hopefully, she had forgotten about stirring.

            “No, that part was true.” Sam said her cheeks slightly flushed.  “But they were separated at the time.  At least, that’s what he told me.  Turns out, they were separated while they were at work and when he was with me but other than that they were still very much together.”

            None of us knew how to segway out of that last comment.

            “Grandma, she was the best during all that,” Sam walked over to the shelf.  “During those three months we had our Saturday morning brunches.  She shared stories of when we were younger.  That’s when she told me about that silly elephant of yours.  I mean, I didn’t remember the details since I am so much younger than you.”

            “Seven years,” I said.

            “Right, so much younger than you.”  She forced a smile as if to force the mood to lighten in the room.  “I knew I broke the thing but I had forgotten your level of fascination with it.  That’s weird, bro.”  She sat on the couch next to Curtis.

             “Look,” I said getting a little defensive now that the elephant was the topic again.  “It just meant something to me.  It’s a reminder of all the time we spent here at grandma’s and I would like it.  She promised it to me.”

            “I don’t know why you still want that piece of junk.  After all these years, I thought you would have outgrown it.”  Mom said and resumed her stirring.

            “One can only hope,” Curtis said sarcastically.

            “I mean,” mom continued ignoring Curtis.  “It’s been broken and pieced back together so many times. I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has.”

            “What?” I asked.

            “It’s not easy gluing those pieces back together. “

            “I thought grandma glued it back together when I broke it,” Sam said. 

            “Oh,” mom said and looked around the room.  “She did glue it when you broke it but she didn’t fix it every time it’s been broken.”

            With that, the focus of the room shifted once again.  This time it was mom’s turn to share a secret.

            “Mom?” I asked so that she would continue her story.

Chapter IV: Mom

Chapter II: Curtis