Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: SKELETON IN THE CLOSET (11/30/17)
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TITLE: The Graduation Ring | Previous Challenge Entry
By LeslieJean Anderson
12/06/17 -
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“Nana, what happened to Dad? I want to know. I NEED to know! I’m almost twenty-four and I deserve to KNOW!”
Every year I’d ask her this question when we went to place Easter flowers on his grave. Nana was always silent, and sometimes she’d cry.
My mother had died in childbirth, so Nana and my dad had raised me, although sometimes he’d be gone for several months on military duty. When I was twelve, we heard he’d died overseas.
Nana sighed. “Sylvia, we’ll take a graduation trip when you finish your Master’s at the School of Music next month. We’ll go by train. Then I’ll tell you.”
“Where are we going, Nana?”
“Texas, girl. Where I grew up and where your parents met and married. There some things there I want to show you. Please be patient till then.”
Well, I wasn’t patient, but I was excited at the graduation, a dream that my Dad and I had shared since I began singing in church at age seven. He always said that I was the song in his heart.
On the train we had our own compartment, but we ate with other passengers. Nana was in a talkative mood and struck up several conversations. She began to talk about her childhood. About Grandpa and their life on the ranch. And about my dad and my mother, childhood friends who married at seventeen.
Finally, we reached a small but prosperous town outside San Antonio. As Nana arranged for a car and a driver, she said, “We’re going to have a tour, Sylvia. But don’t pester me with questions, ok?”
Sitting in front, Nana instructed the driver to go to a certain jewelry store, and asked him to wait for us.
We went inside, and an older gentleman came forward to greet us. Another man was looking at a tray of rings.
“Hello, Billy,” said Nana warmly. “This is Sylvia, Martin’s daughter. She just graduated from college and has several job offers already.”
He smiled and took my hands gently in his. “I went to high school with your parents. I heard that you sing in church, just like your mother did.”
Afterwards, the driver took us on a tour of the town, with Nana narrating enthusiastically as he drove. I was transfixed as I imagined my parents running around this town as vibrant young adults. Finally, we found our hotel.
In the morning the same driver took us out to the ranch. We stopped at a brick gate and a rough-looking man on a horse approached us. He said nothing, but waved us through.
A kindly-looking lady came out of the ranch house, and welcomed us. We sat on her front porch sipping tea, and I listened to the ladies talk about old times. An older man passed by us several times and tipped his hat. Conversation always stopped when he did that. But I noticed Nana smiling and her eyes shining.
The driver dropped us off at the train that evening, and Nana thanked him profusely, giving him a hug and a handful of cash. Then we were back on the train, heading home.
After dinner, when we were alone, I said. “Nana, thank you for that wonderful visit. I learned a lot. But I can’t see how it answered my question.”
She looked at me intently and said, “Sylvia, your father never came back because of his dangerous undercover work with the military overseas. Assassins were tracking him, so he didn't dare come home. He eventually entered the Federal witness protection program. It was for our protection as well. It surely saved his life and probably ours too.”
I jumped up gasping, “You mean he’s alive?”
“Yes, Sylvia, and you probably saw him this weekend, but he has a completely new identity. He can give no indication of his former life, no matter what the circumstances.”
My brain raced through the different people we had met.
Nana read my mind. “You won’t be able to figure out who it was, because he had to undergo plastic surgery. But somehow, he was able to deliver a graduation gift to the hotel room, Sylvia. Here it is.”
She handed me a little box with a pretty bow. It contained a glittering ruby ring. Inside the gold setting there was an inscription that read, “To Sylvia – you’ll always be the song in my heart.”
750 words This is a work of fiction.
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I never expected the ending.