Family Secrets

Write about someone who self-publishes a story that was never meant to be read.

Family Secrets

By Clarence Molloy III

It was 2 a.m. and Liston was still wide awake. Elaine, on the other hand, his wife of 21 years, was beside him in bed, sleeping so peacefully. How could she sleep so soundly after reading her mother’s diary that detailed years of horror and abuse in her home on the tiny Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, also known as Statia?

Liston couldn’t take it any longer. Something had to be done with all this new and exciting information that was discovered less than twelve hours ago. He got out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs to his home office.

As he opened his laptop, he rehearsed the words Elaine had stated earlier. She had said that her mom never spoke much about her parents or her life in Statia.

Elaine’s mom, Criselda, actually died 18 years ago. Liston and Elaine flew down and stayed in Statia for two weeks, helping her brother plan the funeral and settle the affairs of her estate. Liston had only met Ms. Criseld once in person when she flew up to Norfolk, Virginia for their wedding.

After Ms. Criselda’s funeral, Liston helped Elaine pack a few boxes of her mother’s favorite items of clothing, photo albums, jewelry, and other trinkets. They shipped the boxes to their home in Virginia, and they’ve been in their garage ever since. It was only a few days ago that Liston was able to convince Elaine that they needed to do some serious Spring cleaning this year, and decide on what they wanted to keep and throw out from within all those boxes of stuff they had accumulated over the years. That’s when Elaine found her mom’s diary and began reading it. At first, Liston thought it was just all the dust that was causing Elaine’s eyes to water until he heard her sobbing. He looked up from the box he was rummaging through just in time to see Elaine throwing a small, tattered, olive green leather book back into a box and running into the house crying.

Liston ran in behind her to see what was wrong. It took several seconds for Elaine to compose herself. She was shaking in Liston’s arms. Liston stroked her soft, jet-black hair gently and slowly rocked from side to side in an attempt to calm his wife down.

Elaine was finally able to look up at her husband with her red, runny eyes and say that now she knew why her mom never spoke about her childhood. “My mom had a horrible childhood with those monsters who reared her,” she said as she pulled away from Liston and ran up the stairs to their bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Liston decided it was best to give Elaine some time to herself and walked back to the garage, and retrieved the small, tattered, olive-green leather book that caused his wife so much grief. He sat on a small step ladder and began flipping through the pages, and began reading. An hour later, he placed the book back into the box and stood up, blankly staring out of the garage, into the yard across the street with his hands on his hips. He was in disbelief. He had a whole new respect for Ms. Criselda.

After closing the garage door, Liston went into the house to check on Elaine. He wasn’t sure if he was going to let her know that he had just spent the last hour reading the most private thoughts of her mother and that he also now knew of her deepest, darkest secrets. He was about to open the bedroom door when he heard Elaine’s voice. He stopped and eavesdropped on her conversation. He was able to quickly determine that she was speaking to someone from Statia. Her accent automatically changed when she spoke to other people from the Caribbean. Liston struggled to understand what she was saying. She was frantic. Plus, Caribbean people tend to speak fast, which made it more difficult for him to make out all of what she was saying. He was able to make out her saying something about Clive, which made him believe she was talking to her brother.

Liston opened the door and peeked in. Elaine looked up from the bed and ended her conversation quickly, and got up and fell into his arms. She began crying once more. Liston had never seen his wife so distraught in all the years he had known her.

Still wrapped in his arms, Elaine told him that she was going to burn that green book because she didn’t want him or anyone else reading it.

Liston swallowed hard and then said, “It’s too late. I just spent the last hour reading it from cover to cover.”

Elaine pulled away from him and with a steady gaze, she asked, “How could you do such a thing? Don’t you have any respect for anyone’s privacy, much less my mother’s? Don’t you have any respect for the dead?”

She then sat on the bed and buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

Liston stood there, not knowing what to do or say. He felt her pain and felt guilty for what he was about to suggest. Ms. Criselda’s upbringing was painful to read, but at the same time, it had all the ingredients of an award-winning novel. It contained painful truths concerning verbal abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, colorism on an island where the majority were black but the few mixed people were at the top of society, unsolicited sexual advances from relatives and friends of the family, and so much more. Ms. Criselda experienced every evil one could think of except murder, unless she left that part out.

Liston couldn’t help himself. This seemed like too good of an opportunity to let it get away. Was he being a cold, ruthless, greedy-for-money fiend?

He had to find a way to convince Elaine to turn her mother’s diary into a book. He knew that if he wrote about Ms. Criselda’s life on Statia, it could even morph into a blockbuster movie at the very least.

A year ago, he had made up his mind that the time had come for him to pursue his life’s dream of becoming a writer. He took the chance despite Elaine laughing at him. He remembered her words vividly. “You’re an accountant, not an author. Please don’t quit that good job of yours for some pipe dream. Who told you that you can write anyway? Are you going through some kinda mid-life crisis?”

Even Rudy, his best friend at work, uttered the same sentiment. “What? You wanna write a book? You? Of all people? Did you somehow forget that people like us don’t write books? We are numbers guys, for crying out loud. People like us don’t write books. What’s the matter with you? Listen, let’s hurry up and crunch these numbers before it’s quitting time. I can’t believe you said you want to write a book.”

Ignoring the two people who were the closest to him, Liston wrote and self-published his book. Both Elaine and Rudy were shocked to see that he actually did it. Unfortunately, his book was a huge flop. Only four people bought his book during the one year that it’s been out.

But, this time, Liston knew, without a doubt, that a book depicting the details of his mother-in-law’s life would put his name on the map. This book had the potential to change his and Elaine’s lives for the better. He could see himself being presented with literary awards, prizes, and accolades by Oprah herself on stage before thousands of onlookers in the audience as the ceremony was broadcasted live on CNN and the other television and online streaming news agencies.

Liston came up with a plan to start writing the book behind Elaine’s back. Then, once it was completed, he would share it with her, and she would see what an awesome job he did at tastefully preserving her mom’s legacy in a dignified manner that would preserve her mom’s good name without any form of embarrassment to her and the other family members. He knew he could do it.

Liston worked relentlessly on the book, sneaking out of bed to work on it for an hour and a half daily, then sneaking back into bed to catch 45 minutes of sleep before the alarm went off, with Elaine not having a clue as to what he was up to.

Two months later, the book was finished. Liston was proud of himself. It was his finest work ever. He had edited it twice and also emailed it to an online proofreading company. He paid an artist on Fiverr to create a beautiful front and back cover for it. The book was ready to be published as soon as he got Elaine’s consent. She was going to love it – all three hundred and fifty pages.

In his excitement, Liston uploaded the book onto Amazon’s KDP book publishing website and got the book formatted and ready to go when Elaine gave him the “Ok.” All he would have to do was press one button, and it would be off to the printers.

In his haste to get back to bed before the alarm went off, Liston accidentally pressed that one button, unbeknownst to himself.

Over the next three weeks, Liston agonized over how to bring up the subject to Elaine – that he had gone against her wishes and created a book about her mom’s sad life as a child. The contents of the diary were still a touchy subject for her. She even hid it or threw it away. Liston knew because the last time he went looking for it to verify some of the facts for his book, it was nowhere to be found. It was no longer in the box or anywhere else in the garage or the house.

One evening, when Liston arrived home from work, he was met by Elaine, who was clearly not in a good mood. Before he could greet her with a hug and a kiss, she glared at him and then threw a crumbled piece at him. It was a letter that came in the mail from CNN requesting to interview him concerning his book, which was ranked as one of the top five best sellers in America about “Criselda’s unfortunate life in St. Eustatius.”

“Explain to me what the hell this is!” yelled Elaine. Liston had never seen his wife angry like this before.

He smoothed out the letter a little and began reading. How did they know about his book? And, what did they mean by it was predicted to be the best selling book in the USA in a couple of weeks?

This explained the voicemail messages he had been receiving over the past two days. He thought they were calls from scammers, which he always ignored.

He shyly looked at Elaine, not knowing what to say exactly. His throat was dry all of a sudden.

Elaine’s arms were crossed as she stood, awaiting a rational response from her husband.

“Babe,” Liston began, voice trembling. “I’m so sorry…,” he said, slowly and softly. “But your mom’s life was such an incredible story that I just had to start writing about it. I didn’t mean for it to be published without your knowledge or approval. I’m still trying to figure out how CNN got wind of it, but it seems that the book is slated to be a best seller, as I knew it was going to be. This book could actually be the answer to our prayers. Now we can pay off some of these bills, especially the mortgage, and even start traveling around the world like we’ve been talking about for so long…”

Elaine shouted, “How dare you try to use my mother’s pain and suffering for a profit! How dare you go behind my back to expose my family’s secrets! Where do you get off thinking that I would travel anywhere with you at my mother’s expense? Where do you get off writing anything about my mom without my approval, especially when I told you not to read her diary, which you took it upon yourself to do anyway? Who the hell do you think you are? Anyway, I had a feeling you would be coming up with some kinda crock like this, so I started packing my bag to leave your horrible, unfaithful, unwashed anus. As of today, I have nothing to do with you. I hope you find happiness with all your newfound millions at the expense of me and my mother, and everyone else in my family!”

Elaine picked up the large suitcase she had hidden behind the kitchen counter and rolled it past Liston. He attempted to reach out and touch her arm, but she slapped it away from her. He followed her to the garage, pleading for her to stop and listen to him for one minute.

Ignoring his pleas, Elaine threw the suitcase in the back seat of her car and hopped into the driver’s seat, and almost ran over his foot as she sped away.

Liston fell to the ground and cried like a baby. His lovely Elaine had left him. The love of his life was gone, and she wanted nothing to do with him.

While on the garage floor, he saw that dreaded, small, tattered, olive-green diary under a bookshelf. He reached for it and was about to throw it into the street to be pulverized by the traffic of cars and trucks in the neighborhood, but then he had a better idea. He went into the living room and started a fire in the fireplace. Smoke could be seen for miles billowing from Liston’s chimney, in the middle of July.