ESL Blogs

                                            A Sceleton in a Closet

Moving to a new apartment about a month ago I decided to look through all the papers and documents kept at my home for many years. There were mostly the death certificates as most of my relatives had passed away. But suddenly I noticed a secret pocket in the folder where I found one unopened envelope yellowed with time. I had never seen it before. It was addressed to me. Sure, I got curious and opened it. It was a letter from my granny and a key. I immediately recalled my beloved granny, a masterful, demanding, proud, wise woman who kept under control both her daughter’s (my mom’s) and her son’s families.

The letter said:

“Dear Tanya, when you read this letter, both your mom and I will have been dead for long.  Although I was strict with you, I have always loved you more than your mom who learned nothing from my lessons opposite to you. You are very much like me and I will tell you one secret you should know to make the right conclusions.

You have always asked where your grandpa is and why I am single. Now, it is time for you to know the truth. Your grandpa was a great professional in his field. He was socially active and one day he became a mayor of Kiev.  Also, he was an outstanding sportsman, one of the founders of the “Dynamo” Club.  He was very famous and influenced that time. But he was also very handsome, athletic and…. Charming dandy. Although he loved me and our kids, he couldn’t help dangling after any pretty woman he saw. Wherever we might have been, he stared at women as if trying to undress them with his eyes. He sang dithyrambs to them, he complimented them. Women were his true passion. First, I didn’t mind as he was the same to me and it was even funny to see him admired by others. But with time he started paying less and less attention to me as a woman spending all his time at work and at the sports club. He might not have had lovers, but it didn’t matter as I stopped existing for him. I was just a housewife, a mother of his kids. So, one day when he refused from making love saying he was so exhausted, my patience gave away. I took a gun from under my pillow and fired at his handsome face for nobody to see it again. I bricked up his body in the wall of our old house’s basement where you used to play hide-and seek with your brother. Here is the key to the basement door if you want to see your grandpa at last. You will find him in the right hand wall behind the old wardrobe. I hope you have got what I wanted to tell you, dear.  Be happy!”

“Well, well,” I thought. “I have always expected my granny to have had a skeleton in her closet, but I didn’t mean it literally!” I had a lot of doubts whether to go to our old house where I was born and raised but my curiosity came out on the top. When I reached the place I disappointedly saw our old house demolished and there was a new building constructed over the place where my grandpa was said to have been buried.

“Well,” I thought, “It must be for the better as I am not an archeologist to dig out bones.” But I also thought, “My sweet grandma, you have always given me wise advices and I found your letter just in time as my hubby reminds me of my grandpa so much! Thank you, my dear! One day I will know what to do!”

And I went to the cemetery to leave my granny’s favorite flowers on her grave.