A Legacy Dismantled

My grandfather’s study was his inner sanctum.

The room from which he commanded his empire, led the family, and mapped out the future.

If he wasn’t with his family, or working, he was in his study planning.

Growing up we were never allowed inside unless it was supervised.

And now we were going to dismantle the entire thing.

It had only been a few days, and with my grandmother visiting friends, there was a window of a few hours.

The card ride over was quiet, which wasn’t out of the ordinary as my father was the opposite of my grandfather, a man of many words. We were going over to look for a few things, some paperwork that my dad needed, but even in the silence of the car I could feel something other hanging in the air.

When we arrived at the apartment it was the first time that I wasn’t greeted by one of my grandparents.

I followed my father to the student and we went inside.

Lining the walls were bookcases stacked with rows and rows of leather bounds books, framed awards, citations, and mementos.

Facing a panoramic window looking across the skyline of the city was my grandfather’s desk, an art-deco behemoth with a typewriter, books, papers, pens, and ink blotters.

This was the first time I had ever been in the room without my grandfather.

My father started to look through the drawers, opening envelopes with a gilded-silver letter opener as I scanned some of the familiar books I had grown up with on art, philosophy, and the biographies of great men.

The files my father was looking for must be in the office, or the bedroom closet, and while he was going to go look for them, he gave me a specific set of order with a seriousness that I had never seen before.

First I was instructed to take that entire row of books on the shelf near the door, and throw them down the incinerator chute in the hallway.  

Second I was instructed to pull out the bookcase there against the far wall and throw out everything behind it.

Everything.

Make sure all of it goes down the chute.

Grandma would be home soon.

I listened to my father.

The row of books near the door were seventy-two composition books, the old-time marble and white notebooks you used to use in school.

Pulling them off the shelf dislodged a shower of paper scraps, tickets, and other miscellanea tucked in the books.

Picking up the scraps, I began to look through the books.

The books were dated, twenty-five years of notes, observations, and rules- it was my grandfather’s system on horse racing.

Inherited from his father, he had a love of horse racing, the family growing up on tales of the horses he owned, the ribbons they won, and the money he made.

Money that built an empire, bought a country house and a yacht.

It was only in the later years that his other business ventures paid off as his children pushed him to get out of the races.

They weren’t interested in the horses, but they were interested in the money which his sons quickly spent but could never replicate.

The second bookcase was heavy, and it was there that I noticed that the heaviest books in my grandfather’s collection were all arranged and stacked on this single bookcase.

Piling them up on the floor, I lifted the bookcase out and pushed it aside.

Behind it on the floor, wedged against the wall were bundles of letters and pictures tied with string.

I piled them into a box and double checked that I didn’t miss anything when I noticed one of the envelopes had a tear in it and there was a picture inside.

My father returned to the study and found me staring at the picture.

A picture of my grandfather maybe fifteen years ago standing on the porch of a strange hour with a woman, a woman who was not my grandmother, and was quite the opposite of her.

What the fuck is this? I asked.

It was the first time that I had ever cursed at or in front of my father.

Snatching the picture from my hand he threw it in the box and ordered me to throw it all down the chute.

I always listened to my father.

It would be some years later through the bits and pieces of family life and lore that I pieced together what that bundle of letters was and the little inconsistencies that could be overlooked or dismissed all made sense.

My grandfather was a man with two families and one of them didn’t know about the other.

It took me some more years later to confront my father on it, and by confront it was his silence that gave me confirmation and not explanation.

I was angry at him.

If he didn’t want me to know, he shouldn’t have involved me.

I was angry the he never gave me a choice, never gave the family a choice.

Was I talking about my grandfather or my father now?

That family legacy of that system, a lifetime of analysis and horse racing, while his sons didn’t appreciate it and dismissed it, maybe his grandchildren or his namesake- me, could have done something with it.

Any my grandfather’s other family?

Who else knew?

His grandchildren should have been told about it, decisions aside they are also our family.

The mistake was I always listened to my father.

I was only 15.