Aunt Bonnie

She was 70 and on oxygen the Thanksgiving that she pulled a butcher knife on my father...her brother...Jack. Then she threw it at him, but he ducked in time and it stuck quivering in her cupboard for a millisecond before crashing to the floor. Ordinarily, I’d label this event as “traumatic” but taken as a whole, it was just a single scene in a surface “normal”, albeit dysfunctional family Thanksgiving. There is poignancy in the fact that it would be our last one but that didn’t have anything to do with weapons. In any case, cousin Jeannie (Bonnie’s daughter) and I were too busy rifling through Bonnie’s closet for evidence of two of Bonnie’s children’s paternity, that we were not present for the argument that led up to the incident.

We found what we were looking for and it was tucked triumphantly away when we exited the bedroom just in time to see dad cornered at the sink, with his arms up in a feeble attempt to protect his head. Thankfully, she was a poor aim.

The scent of basted turkey, fresh pumpkin pie, and grandma’s orange cranberry crest all wafted through the house, carried on the steam of boiling potatoes. Condensation covered the kitchen windows like silver appliques. Jeannie’s sister, Carol sat tucked into a corner, knitting a baby blanket for a new grandchild. Little did Carol know that we had a picture of her biological father literally in our back pocket. Well, in Jeannie’s back pocket. The hard part was going to be telling her that her father was other than the man who had raised her; raised all four of Bonnie’s children. Poor Harvey, God rest his soul.

Truthfully, after the knife incident, everything fell back into a state of surface normal. Bonnie sat back down with her oxygen tank and dad took a chair at the kitchen table. The children all played happily upstairs, oblivious to the adults below. For now anyway.

And so Jeannie and I went back to the stove, dad worked a crossword puzzle and Bonnie visited with Carol. Soon, cousin Ricky (Jeannie and Carol’s brother) and his girlfriend, Theresa joined the mix. The children all came downstairs, my three, Jeannie’s son, and one of Carol’s grandchildren. They ranged in age from three to twelve years old.

So there we were, parts of one big happy family. Looking at snapshots of that Thanksgiving, we look like the quintessential all American family at the holidays. Sweet smiling faces against a backdrop of middle class furniture and a couple pieces of nice art, in an immaculate country home.

We were all sober and Jeannie set a beautiful table. I make the point that we were all sober because about half the adults present were not always so. But today they were. We all gathered around the big dinner table with its delicate white lace cloth and pre-dinner conversation ensued. When the basket of steaming fresh yeast rolls was placed “just so” Aunt Bonnie lit up happily and suggested we say grace. It was an awkward moment in our primarily non-religious family; all raised loosely Protestant but all church drop-outs. Ricky cleared his throat and came up with something that passed as prayer and Bonnie’s eyes misted over in unstated nostalgia.

We were making our plates, and passing this and that around when Jeannie’s son, Max, placed his hand in the bowl of mashed potatoes and flung some on his plate. Max was nine years old and has Down’s Syndrome, so it was just one of those things you might anticipate with any special needs child, or any very young child. Jeannie laughed and wiped his hand off, which fortunately had been washed well just before dinner and we carried on...for a very short time...before Aunt Bonnie matter-of-factly said to Jeannie “This is what happens when you choose to spend your entire pregnancy at the bar.”

It was like the air had been sucked out of the room. Even the children froze; sensing the tensity.

Jeannie calmly gathered herself and replied “Mother, he doesn’t have fetal alcohol syndrome. He has an extra chromosome.” And she served herself some cornbread stuffing. But Bonnie had been triggered by unseen forces and said “An extra chromosome from the bottom of a bottle perhaps?” Jeannie without missing a beat replied “On the bright side, I do know who his father is...mother.” And she took a bite of turkey with cranberries.

Carol, trying to de-escalate the situation said in a false high pitched voice “Look at this! Three generations at this table! How fortunate we are.” To which Bonnie said “And there would be one less at the table if my brother hadn’t moved quickly enough. Which I wish were the case. Jack, do you remember the knife I threw at you when we were kids and you stole my doll?” Dad’s cheeks reddened but he refused to respond, which angered Bonnie. “Well, I do!” She said, raising her voice “And I wish you wouldn’t have dodged that knife either!”

The worst of it was that Bonnie was actually in her right mind. She’d had a “mean streak” all of her life, although she was generally quite sweet and sanguine. The children in the family loved this matriarch who would coddle them and give them fresh baked cookies. But as she aged, her mean spells increased as her “nerve pills” (Librium) decreased at the doctors behest.

She sat with her arms folded across her chest now, glaring at those gathered. She had turned into an evil queen who would punish her subjects for uncommitted crimes. Everyone at the table shrunk back, except for the children who were either amused or distracted by the feast. Her round cheeks were candy apple red and her eyes were on fire. She glanced between those seated until her eyes landed on Theresa. “You.” She said “I don’t know for the life of me what my son sees in you except that he does like sleazy women and you dress like a two-bit hooker.” Theresa gasped and seven year old Lily addressed Carol in a sweet voice “Grandma, what’s a Tube It Hooker?”

Ricky stood up and Theresa followed suit. Carol commented on how good the cranberries were, dad just sat shaking his head. Jeannie then stood up and reached into her back pocket. She flipped the black and white photo around like a poker dealer might flip a card, then she faced it directly toward Bonnie and said “Do you want to tell us about this picture, mom?” Bonnie’s red face looked like those old toys that you flip over and all of the colored sand runs out. She was so white I thought she might pass out. “No, I do not,” Was all she said and she left the table but didn’t go far. She was rummaging around in her purse and we were all a bit on edge until she produced her bottle of nerve pills and popped one without water.

Then dad stood and up and said “But I will. That’s Carol’s father.” And Carol’s fork hit the floor.

Needless to say, that particular Thanksgiving dinner was over before it started. Bonnie died less than two months later and dad died a month after her. We still don’t know who Ricky’s father is but Carol was able to meet hers. The takeaway here is that life really is short; love one another, don’t keep family secrets, and hide the knives from the Bonnie in your family.