Excerpt of The Last Cotillion by Thadeus Parkland

  I was twenty-two years old, working my first big boy job in a small company in the city where I grew up. I had recently returned home from college and was seeking my path. Adhering to a quote from Mame Dennis, “Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death,” I seemed always to be looking for a banquet table I could feast at. I carried this mantra with me in life while I searched.

It was a beautiful spring day in Texas, early March if my memory serves me well, flowers blossoming, trees wearing their recently sprouted leaves like a new store-bought dress, the smell of fresh new blooms emitting their lovely soft fragrance into the air around me. Something about the renewal of the earth each spring opened my mind and heart to the world around me, offering new perspectives and dreams. Hope was being renewed, the imposing winter blues melting away like the last bits of winter snow, and with it, I hoped the sadness which had been consuming me. It had been 6 months since my grandmother’s funeral, and I didn’t really feel a loss for her. Yet something was constantly nagging at me, pulling me towards a despair I couldn’t explain, an inherent grief I couldn’t shake loose. I often questioned what my mother meant when she spoke of my grandmother’s great sadness, was depression a family issue? 

Unbeknownst to me, the question would be answered shortly with information that would free my soul from its constriction; just as my grandmother’s spirit had finally been released from her rotting body.

Sitting at my desk on an average Tuesday morning, my colleagues and I were entrenched in our tasks at hand. The office unusually quiet; the copiers humming, delivery men grunting on their way to the back storeroom, vending machines overhearing stories of two men’s adventures the night before. Sounds I had grown accustomed to in the workplace, the noise provided a background hum that somehow soothed me. With the buzzing calming me, I took a few deep breaths and settled into a narrow focus reading a new proposal. When my desk phone rang, I halfheartedly answered, “This is Thadeus.” The voice to respond was my mom’s.

“Hello there, how are you?” she chirped like a baby bird in its nest.

She appeared more chipper than usual, a melodic tone accompanied her words, which made me suspect something was up. My mother carried a strong meridional demeanor, often used by her when giving bad news out of left field. She tossed information around as if there were no significant relevance of the words she was delivering. It resembled a dialogue slightly akin to a reporter who once asked, “Other than that Mrs. Kennedy, how was Dallas?” We had a short, be it a typical meaningless conversation, the kind I imagine most children have when starting a phone dialogue with a parent. After a few minutes of idle chatter, Mom realized I was focused on something other than her; she quickly wrapped up the phone call by requesting I have lunch with her that afternoon. This was completely out of character for her, plans were always made in advance with a step by step approach like an outline for a thesis. I sensed there was a train moving towards me at great speed; me being focused on the light at the end of the tunnel, which very well could be the headlight on the engine. Mom always managed to be gracious should you stop by her house unannounced, but she never left her house without a plan. I tenaciously accepted her offer and forty-five minutes later was sitting opposite her at a local bistro I frequented. The food was always comforting and a glass of wine readily available should I require it after hearing why she was there. The owners of the bistro were friends of mine, this alliance provided me confidence that whatever she wanted to talk about would not turn into a scene, as social-protocol was essential to her way of being. We ordered iced tea and began a conversation I will be able to quote for the rest of my life, word for word. This lunch is etched in my mind as if it happened yesterday. The phrasing, the pauses, intonation of syllables, —  

“You’re old enough to know the truth now,” is how she began.

One stops, breathes deeply while taking a moment to compose thoughts when a statement like that is made. Ideas were flying through my head. My appearance and actions (unfortunate at times) were spot on to my mother’s; so the question that I might be adopted was answered in milliseconds. I looked around the room, trying to spot a grounding rod, something to confirm this was reality and not a dream sequence I would soon wake from. Perhaps my father was not really my dad? Somewhat believable based on their love/hate marriage. The cemetery placard I saw next to Grandmothers grave with “Baby Johnson” etched on the paper immediately popped into my head — did dad have a sibling? Did I have a twin? What in the world was she leading up to? It was during this diatribe of pedantic ranting in my head I noticed she had Grandmother’s jewelry on again, the same set worn to the funeral.  

After what seemed like ten minutes of scenarios populating my head, she looked me square in the eye and said, “Your grandmother and grandfather were not who you think they were. Mary and Thadeus were not your dad’s biological parents, your father was a stolen baby!”