i miss my dad, and the skeletons in his attic

The ladder to the attic groans in protest underneath my mud-caked wingtips, my feet like deadweight as I swivel my body in a precarious dance to leverage another box of Pop’s infamous whatsits against my waist. The man was a closeted hoarder; a survival technique turned obsession that may have served him well when he first left his country to settle here in the States. He always seemed to have two of everything, like our house was Noah’s Ark. Need a pair of jumper cables? Garage, left hand cabinet in front of the Buick. An air fryer? In the living room underneath the floral-print table cover, still in its original box being used as a makeshift coffee table. Maybe he felt more like a pharoah—pillaging the American Dream, padding the inside of his pyramid with appliances that would ward off boredom in the afterlife. The twist at the end is that he passed in the ICU surrounded by entirely new objects, sounds, and people (he had somehow avoided ever going to the hospital in his life). My mom and I, unfortunately, had to say goodbye over the phone. It was the first time he ever used Facetime, and we spent our last conversation with him looking up into his nose and repeatedly reminding him to flip his camera back around. Covid is one hell of a virus.

I heave the box up over my head and into the attic before continuing up the ladder. The apex of my parents’ home welcomes me with a loving dust cloud. I return the greeting with a salutatory wheeze. I feel like the lovechild of Lewis and Clark, slicing my path through some dense thicket of woods … only, the machete is my hands, the woods are these boxes, and the vast frontier I’m colonizing has no gold in it, no treasure to be found, no Sacagawea to honor on dollar coins used as subway change. There is, however, a third air fryer up here. I slide it to a corner of the room with my shoe as I take a hunched stroll through the cramped, allergenic room.

Why Pops always had two of everything was always a point of contention when I lived here. One day, in a compulsive frenzy to clear out space, I began throwing things out. Pops saw me, yelled that I might as well throw him out too since I obviously had no use for old things. I, a recent convert to the temple of Marie Kondo, was shook. Mom told me later that the reason he was always buying two of everything was because he would think about things my younger brother and I would need when we each got houses of our own. Back then I scoffed and said that being a homeowner in today’s world made no sense—hasn’t he ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad? Today, I’m looking at an air fryer and fighting back tears.

My sinuses snap me back to reality. I’m supposed to finish bringing up the last of these boxes from Pop’s study so that we can have the room inspected by Airbnb, and here I am being held hostage by a sneeze.

Mom deals with her emotions by working and making money. To her, life is simple. You're either trading your time for money or rest, and my tendency to analyze things from every single angle before making a decision drives her crazy. But I’ve always been like this. I took a gap year because I couldn’t figure out if learning in an institutional setting and being subject to deadlines would be beneficial for a person like me. After a meandering year of trying my hand at busking on the subway following the discovery of a Django Reinhardt vinyl, watching old Audrey Hepburn movies, and experimenting with alternative states of consciousness, I figured maybe having some structure outweighed the freedom to be a complete jackass (okay, okay—you got me. My ex-girlfriend got into Harvard after we broke up and I couldn’t let her win completely, so I applied to a public university). Going to classes, however, only reinforced my debilitating curiosity. I’d clock ungodly hours of time throwing myself willingly down rabbit holes that bore little resemblance to the topics they once were.

For one, I’m kind of obsessed with this idea that everyone we meet is "in media res"; meaning every time we meet someone, we’re meeting them in the middle of their story. They could have recovered from a car accident last week, or be on their way to cash in a winning lottery ticket and you’d literally have no idea unless something about them, a character trait or something they said, clued you in. I think immigrant fathers are the only people who seem to stay in media res for the entirety of their children’s lives. Sometimes it seemed Pops didn’t exist before I did. No stories were ever shared, only reminiscent smiles when we’d stumble upon an old picture from his youth. When company that he was comfortable with came around, the stories he did share were in a language he never bothered to teach me. You could be the President of the United States one day, what language do you need other than American? Wandering around this old attic, I can’t help but start to wonder what stories about my father the stuff in here could tell me.

The third air fryer might tell me it never asked to be here. The box of Christmas lights would definitely talk to me about their seasonal depression. The dust-covered boombox in the corner would tell me about a time when Mom and Pop would do aerobics in the park after realizing their paychecks were buying quantities of food that their bodies couldn’t cash. There’s another steam cleaner up here, which we have two of in the actual house. There’s also a third coffee machine up here, and a third pressure cooker in their unopened boxes. Turns out he didn’t just have two of everything, he had three. Is this some kind of weird numerology thing? I can feel my sadness giving way to well-cultivated annoyance so I decide to channel my energy into rummaging through one of the boxes from Pop’s study.

There’s one box that he started packing himself when I was on one of my cleaning tirades. An act of solidarity. The glutton for curiosity that I am, I decide this is as good a box as any to start with. I rip the black tape off and begin my dissociative plunder. Old photographs of Grandma. Property deeds, which’ll be important to pass on to Mom. A couple old black notebooks. They’re Moleskines, which he loved taking notes in throughout university, and had an equal love of leaving throughout the house like Easter eggs. One of them is a handwritten ledger with spreadsheets so detailed they could rival Einstein’s chalkboard. The other is a journal. Jackpot. I flip through the pages, skimming names of people I have never heard mentioned, and places I had no idea Pops even knew existed. As I’m flipping through, an envelope falls to the dusty floor.

I pick it up. It’s addressed to a Cassandra Tolentino on 15th Street in New York City. Was Pops cheating?

I carefully slide my finger into one of the open seal flaps and push the paper apart from old glue. I pull out the contents and start reading.

“Dear Cassandra,

I am sorry I will not be able to attend your wedding in July.”

The letter is dated nine years ago.

“The truth is, my wife is unhappy knowing about our correspondence and has asked me to limit contact with you. It pains me to say this to you. I long to meet you and have imagined the whole thing in my head many times since first learning about you, but my wife and I have shared a life together for 30 years. They say you can’t teach an oldPerhaps someday I may be able to meet you, but please understand that there are many factors that stop me from doing so right now. I would like to honor the vocation of your marriage by contributing to your first year in matrimony. Attached is a cashier’s check for $200,000.”

Did I read that right? I turn the letter over to inspect the stapled paper on the other side. It is indeed a check. I read the front. It is indeed a check for two hundred thousand dollars.

“Me and an old buddy of mine invested in a company called D’Ieteren in 2002 when I was working overseas in Belgium and he just pulled out his and my share of the money. To be honest, I had forgotten about the sum I put in his trust but now that it has fallen into my lap once again, I would like for you to have it. Please accept my sincerest apologies for my absence on this very important day in your life. I wish you the best in your union, and all the love I have had the privilege of experiencing in mine.

Best,

Papa”

I think this warrants a moment of silence. A couple deep breaths. I close my eyes and take a very deep, very zen inhale. I cough. Two-hundred thousand dollars! I could buy and fix up a school bus and drive it cross country with that money! I could build my own recording studio! I realize I’m pacing and stop to strike a more dignified pose. I could buy a billboard in Times Square and advertise something for a couple days!

Speaking of Times Square, I have a sister in New York City! I look down at the cashier’s check. A sister who this money belongs to. I mean, not technically, right? I trace the zeroes with my eyes. But spiritually, yes. A sister who’s probably married by now and went on a honeymoon without an extra $200,000 in her bank account. Does she have kids? What kind of job does she have? Does she still live in New York? I’m pacing again.

What are the ethics behind cashing in a check that belongs to someone who has no idea it exists? Okay, maybe that’s not the best question I can ask myself right now. What are the pros and cons of cashing in a check for two-hundred thousand dollars?

Pros: Financial independence for the next couple of years, more if you live simply. Fine dining, with no fear of tipping your waiter. All the travel you could dream of (for about a year). Cons: a sister you just found out existed might need that money.

I slap the top of my head, trying to get my brain to focus and stop attacking me. Brain, list the facts.

Mom and Pop would have been together for 38 years now. Pop mentioned he found out about her recently around the time of the letter. Did my sister happen before or after that 38 started? Mom knew. How does she feel about it? Obviously not good enough to let her husband attend his daughter’s wedding. Most importantly, and something I may never know, why did Pops never mail this letter? I stop pacing and sit down on one of the boxes with my head in my hands, holding the letter like a fragile flower against my hair. What should I do with this check?

I get up and grab the envelope on top of the little black book on the other side of the attic. I turn it over to the stampless front and say her name. Cassandra Tolentino. Cass. Cassie. Sandra. Sandy. New York City. My eyes trace over the letters and numbers of her address, like the stylus of a record player caressing the grooves of an old vinyl. I cough.