So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Two: Johnny, Saturday

Johnny made a discovery of his own while he was searching Dad's drawers for items he'd be wearing in his coffin, a concept that made the skin prickle on the back of his neck. Just thinking of being locked inside a wooden box, lowered into the ground and covered with six feet of dirt made his lungs constrict and his heart race, until he thought he couldn't breathe... no, when he died, he was getting cremated, no question. Cremated, and kept above ground, maybe in an urn Val could keep on the mantle. Then again, what would stop Val from just letting his cremains float on the wind, or maybe straight into the trash? She wasn't his biggest fan right now, her disdain swallowed down only because of the sad circumstances that had brought them to his mom and dad's house on a Saturday night, praying the rosary when he could have been with...

He shook away that thought, and of how he could get back into his wife's good graces, when he came upon the blue aluminum toolbox in Dad's closet, up on the highest shelf where he'd always kept it. Johnny remembered Dad keeping his cash in there, in a plastic bag, of all things, drawing out bills and placing them in his wallet whenever he needed them. Every payday he'd deposited his paycheque at the bank and withdrawn a set amount of money sufficient for the household expenses until the next payday. This had been in the era before credit cards; Dad had never bought anything he couldn't pay for then and there, preferring to save the money over time, probably in this same toolbox, until he'd had enough to pay for the item in full. The only exception had been his properties. Mortgages had been the only debt he'd ever carried. A simple and sound economy, so unrealistic nowadays, but when interest rates had been through the roof in the early Eighties it had been a smart way of living.  

Johnny had often considered raiding Dad's toolbox for cash whenever he wanted to take Val out on a date and found himself short. He'd never done it, though, always fearful of the consequences of getting caught. Val had always suffered for it, having to settle for cheaper food and entertainment, at least until Johnny had started working at Gastaldo Concrete, but to her credit she'd never complained; she'd always been content just being with him, and when Johnny looked back now, he kicked himself for taking her for granted all these years. She'd given him two healthy and capable sons, kept a well-oiled machine of a household, and Johnny had repaid her with one stupid act that now threatened their marriage, and it hadn't even been worth it.

He placed the toolbox on Mom and Dad's bed, opened it, and found there was still a bag containing cash. He wondered if Mom continued Dad's practice. He knew she had credit cards and often still used a chequebook. Maybe this cash had been part of Dad's last withdrawal before viral encephalitis had ruined him and Mom had taken over the financials. Did Mom even know this money was there? He'd bring this to her attention and see.

He pulled out the bag and discovered there were other papers inside. Among them were Dad's and Mom's passports. They were Canadian passports. Before the encephalitis scare, Dad and Mom had finally taken the citizenship test and became Canadians after more than thirty years in the country, having been only permanent residents until then. Joe and Johnny, by contrast, had become citizens after moving to Burnaby back in the Eighties. 

Dad had been so proud after becoming Canadian, lamenting the amount of time he'd taken to decide to be one; it had been hard for him to let go of Italy, his mother country, even if his life there before moving to Canada had been gruelling and unrewarding. For example, his hat, shaped in the Tyrole style with the feather in the brim, a relic from his days in the Alpini regiment of the Italian Army, in which he'd given his mandated two years of service, still rested on his hat stand, and Dad would probably be buried with it on his head.

He opened Dad's passport and saw a picture of a man still vital and strong, an older version of the man who'd often carried both Johnny and Joe on his shoulders with barely any effort when they were kids, but still recognizably Dad. Johnny never told anyone this -- it would have been blasphemous to even mention it -- but when Dad passed away in his sleep two days ago, the first emotion Johnny felt was relief. Now he could remember the Dad of his youth, and not have to look any longer on the doddering fool who'd made his wife into a nursemaid. It was mean to think that way, but he couldn't help it. Mom would be free now; she was still of sound mind if a little frailer than the woman who'd whipped her boys into shape, and she could enjoy her remaining years without having to worry constantly about what Dad was doing while she was out. Luckily, most of what Dad had been doing was sleeping, but even that had imposed a burden on the normally active woman.