Not everyone deserves to know the truth.
Those were my father's exact words. There were upside-down spoons in our mouths, tbe taste of ice cream on our tongues. The hard rock maple table held our elbows. It was midnight and I smelled like Johnson and Johnson.
Dad tapped his watch and gave me the inevitable you should have been asleep hours ago I'm probably a terrible father grimace.
Trouble was, my new classmates at Seedy Creek Elementary were going to wonder about my mother. Dad spoke around a mouthful of mint chocolate chip.
"Don't tell them anything," he said. When I argued that they'd ask, they'd definitely ask, we swapped bowls and he shrugged. Not like my question didn't matter. More like the people asking didn't. I remember his lip curling into my favorite smirk and pink dribbles of Neapolitan clinging to his mustache. I remember Riverdance sounds as he clacked the spoon between his bottom and top teeth. Then the precise shape of his lips saying my name. "Sarah." And I remember what came after.
He shoved the bowl toward the lazy Susan and placed his hand over my eyes. "I want you to picture a basement," he said. He gave my imagination time to populate the darkness. To spot the blackish-green mold clinging to the plaster, hear the boiler gurgling in the corner, hang a single raw bulb from the ceiling. His fingers smelled like sugar. "Now," he said, "take all your favorite truths and secrets, the things you're not sure about, the things you love most in the world and put them down there." Almost as an afterthought he added, "Where they'll be safe."
"Like you letting me stay up past bedtime?" I peeked between his fingers. "Definitely." He winked. "And tough stuff too. Like Mom leaving."
I spotted a momentary wave of regret before he said, "Whatever, whoever you want. When that's done, lock the door."
His face grew animated and he explained that his basement had an ancient door with a cool skeleton key. "Like at Nana's old house in Nashville?" I wanted to know. "Yes, like at Nana's old house."
Then he said something that's wedged in my memory.
"Imagine there are only three keys to the basement and the people with keys, they get to know about Mom. Everyone else gets a shrug."
"So I'm supposed to lie about Mom?"
He parted the hair on my forehead and planted a kiss on my worried face. "Only if you're desperate."
That was ten years ago and it was the last time I'd ever see my father alive.
