“…bank called you,” Dad finished. The living room went quiet. Uncle Pete stood frozen with a piece of wrapping paper in his hand. Dad turned the calendar around so I could see the logo on the front. Benson & Sons Plumbing. Our last name. My father’s company. Pete had no idea. Dad had always told the family he “worked in pipes.”
“You picked this up at our office last week,” Dad said quietly. “Front counter. That’s my desk copy. I keep my schedule in it.” He opened it again to December. “The twenty-second. That’s the date the bank told Linda they’d start foreclosure on your house. Eleven thousand four hundred is what you’re behind.”
Aunt Linda let out a small sound and covered her face. Pete looked at her. “You told him?” She nodded. “I didn’t know who else to ask, Pete. You wouldn’t tell anybody. You were going to let us lose the house before you admitted it.”
Pete sat down hard on the arm of the couch. For thirty years, he’d made the jokes at Christmas. For thirty years, my father had laughed. Dad leaned forward and set the calendar in his brother’s lap. “It’s already paid, Pete. I sent the check Friday. I circled the date so I wouldn’t forget to tell you before the bank did.”
Nobody said anything. Then my uncle, the loudest man in our family, put his face in his hands and cried. Dad got up and put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. You don’t owe me anything.”
Pete finally looked up, red-eyed. “The man who has everything except a social life,” he said hoarsely, quoting his own joke. Dad smiled. “I’ve got a brother. That’s social enough.” That calendar hangs in Pete’s kitchen now. On December 22nd, there’s a new note in Pete’s handwriting: “Call my brother. Every year.” He does. Every single year.
