The lies emerge as my 101 year old uncle unfiltered and sipping a strong frozen margarita says odd things. Their whole line of the family, my dad’s sister’s side, is odd. Huddled on a compound on the shores of Lake Austin, like a hillbilly compound.
“Your mom was rather moody,” he says to me.
“We all are on this side.”
There is a huge amount of guilt they are covering over like cats trying to cover shit is a full litterbox. The property is worth millions. The kids are like squatters. Once their dad kicks the monthly tax rate would be more than the mortgages they don’t have.
“It was originally two lots, side by side, deep and narrow,” he tells me. His son and his wife, childless, live in the Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house near the beach. When we were kids there were endless sand castle constructions, festive 4th of July parties, and a lot of booze. That’s not to say they are the boozy side of the family. Both sides developed a strong affinity for intoxication from their mom, my grandmother.
The mythology says my dad kicked his dad out of their family medical practice. His dad arranged a second honeymoon in Honolulu for he and his wife. Relieved of his life’s work, he hoped to bring about a new temperance in his wife while in paradise. It didn’t take.
“He left notes for his wife and both kids,” my uncle says. I’d like to see those. “Took an overdose of his heart medication.”
My favorite sister couldn’t stand this clan of the lakefront property. When our grandmother died, all of the silver and china vanished. The daughter had already taken up residence in a house her husband built on the other lot. There was no love lost for my father. My sister railed for some of the antiques. Something to show for our part of the estate. Nothing doing.
My uncle even gave a slight nod to this story. “Your dad got 15th street and Bastrop. The Rainbow Bend house was already sold.”
Yes, but, dear uncle, what of the millions your clan is enjoying now by proxy and the untold value, the portion of an estate, soon to be realized? What of those things? Shame such an influx of cash will be wasted on such dull people. Skipping Christmas drinks this year, the one bright cousin is traveling with her daughter. The father, son, and his wife will spend a quiet evening in the fabulous lake house, designed by a fabulous architect, where I spent my summers.
