The Secret Words

It’s not that the words are powerful. It’s that the words are secret.

Maybe that’s why I don’t remember them: the secret words my dad divulged to me on his deathbed.

The words are secret, so he shouldn’t have told me. In that room at the hospice center. Just the two of us, the evening before he died. Dusk falling on the garden outside his big window. A nurse checking in every so often.

I saw rhododendrons and azaleas on the other side of that window. Fancy trees of differently trained shapes and sizes turning into shadows. That's what I saw through the window: flowering shrubs, ornamental trees ... the sky darkening. What did my dad see? When Daddy looked out the window he saw a limousine pull up to get him.

It’s okay, Daddy … they’ll wait for you.

At the foot of his bed he saw my grandma: his mother who passed away years before. Waved and said "hiiiii mama!!!" Told me to say hi too. Both of them afflicted with disease in their lungs.

*****

The morphine kept dead guests arriving. Old friends and family to wave at. All come to see him after such a long time apart.

The limousine was waiting but he had something to tell me.

“You don’t have a pimp around here listening, do you?”

No, Daddy … I don’t have a pimp. There’s nobody here but me.

Relieved, he went on.

“NOW. These words are SECRET! Listen … “

*****

Daddy always scoffed and snorted at conspiracy theorists and church people warning Freemasonry was some kind of a cult. Like when my friend’s bible-belt Baptist dad told her that Masons like my dad worshiped the Devil.

“Secret society! There are no real secrets … you just tell anyone they can go to any public library and check out all of our ‘secrets’ if they want to. There is nothing nefarious about it.”

Still, Daddy never told us any specifics. Never told us exactly why our uncle refused to go through initiation, protesting it would break his vow of fidelity to his wife. I couldn’t tell if it was keeping secrets from her or something to do with taking his clothes off at some imaginary crossroads in that room at the lodge. Upstairs with the altar where I loved to go to installations. Daddy and Grandpa all dressed up in suits, wearing their white aprons with embroidery and blue trim.

Whatever reason our uncle had for not joining the Brotherhood, Daddy thought that was funny, too. But the secret handshakes Masons exchanged openly were important to him. Always observed. Always impressive, whatever information a stranger would communicate to him in that way. A pleasant surprise: members of the same fraternity.

He would point it out sometimes when it happened on TV. Between football players? Politicians? Guests on Johnny Carson? I can’t remember. I just know that it happened sometimes … some special eye contact made during a seemingly-normal greeting done with quick-but-careful handgrips. Can still see that look of amused deference and mutual respect. The most physically engaged I ever saw Daddy with other men. Or with anyone besides us or a cat on his belly.

The specific placement and pressure of a thumb. The strength of a devoted knuckle rubbing behind the ear.

*****

I went through initiation in that room upstairs with the altar too. Was later installed, taking my place in the East.

But not in a suit and apron.

In a long white satin robe, with a royal purple velvet cape and a crown. Old soft thick white satin on my young body, with long silky white cords wound between my breasts: wrapped and tied with a square knot around my waist. Silky white tassels hanging down, bouncing off my body during floor work.

I did the memory work, and hung on to it long enough to perform my parts. But now the only thing I remember for sure (other than the words for Onward Christian Soldiers and Nearer My God to Thee) are our three secret words.

Our three secret words weren’t printed in the books you can find in the library. They were secret work. You had to have someone teach them to you. Or maybe there was a special little paper you were supposed to guard with your life for awhile while you had it. I only recall it vaguely, but I passed our three words on to the younger girls when it was time and they were ready.

I don't remember exactly how I learned them or who gave them to me, but I do remember them: the actual three words we girls were given. Different from the ones Daddy told me the night before he died. Dry unmagical words that come to me when things are hard. Still. Somehow they help.

*****

I leaned in and listened. His eyes twinkled while he told me.

*****

The next day the nurse came in when it was almost time and gently washed his hair.

After that he was ready.

It was very quiet when she turned off the oxygen and I held his hand. Except for the sound of me crying, and her telling him to go to the light. He looked into my eyes intently, trying to tell me something. Unable to breathe ... straining to tell me some words.

It's okay, Daddy. I'll tell Mommy and P. you love them. We'll be alright.

I love you, Daddy.

I don’t know what words he was trying to give me then. I can't find them in the library.