Grand Theft Ashes
Twelve is a complicated age for anyone, but it gets a little more complicated when you find yourself aiding and abetting your parents in a burglary. Situations like that aren’t something most children plan for, at least as far as I was concerned. I certainly didn’t wake up that morning and say, “Mom, Dad, today I’d like to kickstart my career in crime,” and they replied, “we know just the thing, kiddo!” My parents were cool, but certainly not “encourage crime” cool. They were law abiding to a fault, frankly, and so was I. But sometimes life forces you to learn the hard way just how much you’re willing to risk for the people you love. Besides, we weren’t really stealing. We were bringing someone home
❧
The events that led up to that fateful day actually began a few years earlier, when I was maybe eight or nine years old. My parents had sat my younger brother, Scott, and I down to tell us that not all grown-ups were good people. I remember thinking, “Well, yes, of course.” We already knew “stranger danger” and how bad guys went to jail when they broke the law. My father was in law enforcement, so in our house there were no blurred lines to us children when it came to nuanced concepts like what makes a person “good” or “bad”. Neither of us expected my parents to tell us that my grandfather’s wife and stepchildren were the bad people they were talking about and that we wouldn’t be allowed to see them anymore.
At the time, our youthful ignorance and naivety prevented either of us from understanding why our parents would make such a decision. It broke our hearts, and we begged and pleaded for them to reconsider. To us, my father’s stepfamily was the closest thing we had to legitimate aunts, uncles, and grandparents. We saw them more than any of our other extended family, and we would always have so much fun with them anytime they would watch us. We wouldn’t realize until years later, but that fun was actually very irresponsible babysitting and possibly mild child endangerment.
My grandfather, who we so affectionately called “Papa Joe,” was a troubled man, and as such his choices often reflected his desperate desire for companionship. In the fifty-eight years he was alive, he was married seven different times to six different women. My grandmother says that when they were young, he was a dreamboat—a rugged, handsome cowboy who could “charm the fangs off a rattlesnake,” as she put it, and she was not the only woman who thought so.
As far as we’re aware, he only fathered two children, my father and my aunt, with my grandmother in their first and second marriages. I say as far as we’re aware because Papa Joe was—as my grandmother so delicately puts it—a philanderer, which is why they divorced for the second time shortly after my aunt was born. My grandmother took my aunt and moved out of state after their divorce was finalized, leaving my father to be raised by Papa Joe and a parade of not-so-motherly stepmothers. Despite all of Papa Joe’s mishaps (and there were many) my father still loved him until the day he died. The love my dad had for his father was a key factor in why our separation from him and his family wasn’t as cohesive as it should have been.
Papa Joe’s wife, Marlene, and her children, Kyle and Trina, weren’t exactly pillars of the community, but for a time they were tolerable. In fact, as far as Scott and I were concerned, they were loveable. They were loveable to my parents too, in the way that a leech you can’t get rid of is loveable. Typical of leeches, or parasites in general, no one knew their true nature or intentions until it was far too late. They lied, they stole, and they left messes wherever they went. Non-metaphorical messes, like kitchen fires, unaddressed water leaks, and, believe it or not, letting feral cats live on top of their kitchen cabinets. Though, if I’m being more technical, they were actually my parents’ kitchen cabinets.
Before we knew the extent of their toxicity, my parents rented out our old house to Papa Joe, Marlene, and her children after their home suffered a terrible kitchen fire, with the promise they would eventually buy the house. Unsurprisingly, no such promise was fulfilled, and worse still, the home my parents had so graciously rented to them had been trashed beyond belief. Feral cats ran rampant through the house, a water leak in the bathroom had destroyed the flooring and spawned mold that climbed the walls, and there were mountains of garbage from corner to corner. Our first home, the house where I spent my first years of life, had been turned into a den of filth.
That was the final straw. That was the catalyst that pushed my parents to cut them from our lives for good. That is, until my grandfather got sick.
Esophageal cancer. A difficult cancer to treat even if you have the money for it, which they did not. Hindsight being what it is, I don’t think they even wanted to. Marlene refused to put Papa Joe in rehab after his procedures, and most of us agree that was why he passed shortly after his last surgery.
The whole time, Marlene was dishonest about the severity of his condition. Looking back, I wonder if it was because she didn’t want us around or because she was just in denial about his decline. She’d often tell us not to visit, claiming he was too tired to see anyone, even turning away his mother, my great-grandmother. Marlene would say, “I’ll take care of him,” with a sneer that made my stomach twist. It hurt for me to see the truth in my parents’ words. I saw Marlene, who back then I called “Mama Marlene,” become a cruel and vindictive woman that I no longer recognized. It was a betrayal I didn’t know how to process. None of us did.
Kyle and Trina weren’t any better. Once, Trina told my mother, “We don’t need you here,” when she tried to bring Papa a glass of water. Another time, Kyle assaulted my father after some heated words about our presence at the hospital turned into an altercation. Those moments stuck with me, small but sharp interactions that buried themselves in my memory and accumulated into a new and disturbing reality. The family I thought I knew was gone, and as much as I wanted to pull the wool back over my eyes, there was no going back to the way things used to be.
Papa Joe eventually succumbed to the cancer, and he passed in that hospital only days after my family had convinced Marlene he was suffering in that pigsty they called home. My grandfather was a grouchy, foul-mouthed old bastard. There is no denying that. But there was just something about him that enraptured people. He was loved, fiercely, by everyone who knew him. And he shouldn’t have died the way he did.
He shouldn’t have died at all.
If he had been given the proper care, he could have beaten the cancer, I know it. We all knew it, and we were so angry and so stricken with grief that it was difficult for us to accept that he was really gone. The day he passed, my great-grandmother, Papa Joe’s mother, told my brother that our Papa was in a better place now, and little Scott asked, “Where did he go?”
The day after he died, Marlene promised the next year on my grandfather’s birthday, we would honor his wishes and spread his ashes on the ranch where he grew up.
One year passed.
Another year passed.
When the three-year anniversary of his death came and went, most of our family had accepted that Marlene would not be honoring his wishes and would not relinquish even a portion of his remains to us. My great-grandmother pleaded with Marlene for years to let her have some of her son’s remains, but she refused. She refused to give our family any of his possessions, and as much as it didn’t surprise anyone, it wasn’t something we wanted to accept either.
He’ll deny it to this day, but there was a look in my father’s eye anytime Marlene’s visage crossed our minds—a small twinkle of hope that one day she would come around and do what she had promised. It was like a small, silent plea to the universe that she’d find some semblance of humanity, or at the very least empathy, and give us the closure we so desperately needed.
The Christmas after my Papa Joe passed wasn’t an easy one. The family had gathered together for the first time since his funeral to celebrate the holiday and the room seemed dimmer without him in it. Unsurprisingly, all that was talked about that night at dinner was how Marlene had cut all of us out, refusing to part with anything of my grandfather’s that had been promised to us. A signed basketball from his high school golden years, pictures from his hunting trips, tools that he and my father used to fix up old cars, and countless other priceless heirlooms that she had essentially leveraged against us. It was cruel, and because Papa Joe was gone, there was no one left who could reason with her.
It was then we began to understand we would likely never get his remains back. My great uncle joked that maybe one of us could sneak into the house, take the ashes, and refill the urn with ashes from the stove. We laughed, agreeing that Marlene nor her children would be none the wiser if we had. The harebrained scheme was in jest, of course, but that little joke planted a seed in my parents’ minds.
Each holiday, each anniversary of his passing, there was a quiet ache that ran through our family. We tried to celebrate, but there was always a missing piece, something that made our smiles falter and our laughter feel hollow. We tried to move on, but each passing year felt emptier. Each visit to the old house was a reminder of promises unkept. We all knew something had to give. Someday, somehow, we would make it right.
❧
It took three years after my grandfather passed for an opportunity to right the wrongs presented itself. By happenstance, we were on our way to the old house to make repairs, and some family friends let it slip that Marlene, Kyle, and Trina were out of town for the weekend. I could practically hear the gears turning in my parents’ heads, and I knew we were all having the same devious thought.
Their house was empty.
We would be right next door, on a hilltop where there were no other houses.
And Marlene always left the bathroom window wide open.
When we arrived at the old house, my dutiful, law-abiding, God-fearing parents took me aside as my brother rushed to the bathroom to empty his tiny bladder.
“Charlie,” my mother said to me, her hands cradling my chubby face, “I need you to trust me.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“We’re going to get Papa back,” she began, a quiet desperation I had never seen before blazing in her eyes. “And we need your help.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Operation Grand Theft Ashes was officially in motion. As young as we were, Scott and I understood what was at stake. Fortunately, back then we loved to play Army with walkie-talkies and brought them everywhere we went, and there was one for each of us. It felt like a true tactical mission and was treated as such. I had climbed onto the roof of the old house while my brother ran down the hill to watch the main road. From the roof I could see where my father was posted—outside Marlene’s bathroom window after he boosted my mother in through it.
Phase one of our plan was complete, but the reality of what we were doing was beginning to set in for me. I remember my leg bouncing restlessly as I sat on the crest of that roof, trying to convince myself we were doing the right thing. I couldn’t help but think about Papa Joe and what he would say if he could see us. What would he think if he saw us breaking into his house to steal him away? Would he be thankful? Would he be angry with us?
Thinking back on it now, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s where my lifelong struggle with anxiety was kickstarted. Struggling with the morality of a so-called “rightful robbery” while simultaneously worrying about the consequences we’d face if we were caught was a level of stress my twelve-year-old mind was unaccustomed to.
❧
Phase two of our master plan kicked off as my mother entered the lion’s den, or more appropriately, the garbage pit. Finding my grandfather’s ashes was the main goal in our mission that day, but the family heirlooms and sentimental items Marlene kept from our family were high on our priority list as well—right up there with not getting caught.
We knew we had to try and get as much as we could while we had our chance, and my mother was a perfectionist at heart. Luckily, many of the pictures and heirlooms our family wanted back were easy to spot. That was shocking enough because, as I understand it, the house was a biohazard of animal excrement, trash hoarding, and charred remains of a still burned-down kitchen.
My mother searched that disgusting house for almost two hours, but Papa Joe’s ashes were nowhere to be found. With a heavy heart, she radioed to all of us that she couldn’t find him and was coming out. She climbed out the bathroom window just as she entered, and we all made our way back to the house with our heads hung low. Despite our small victory in recovering a few sentimental items, we all felt as though we had failed.
This had been our one chance. Our golden opportunity.
We had taken the risk, but we still couldn’t manage to find him. We’d lost him once already, and now it felt as though we’d lost him all over again. How could we face his mother and tell her we were right there? We were right there, and he was within our grasp, and we failed to get him back.
“Did you look in the closet?” my father asked my mother, breaking the silence as we worked on the repairs to the house, which was our original reason for even being there.
We all paused what we were doing and looked at him. “What closet?” my mother asked.
“The linen closet in the living room. Did you look there?” he reiterated.
In that moment, I swear a second swell of hope rose within all of us.
My mother looked confused, but she indulged him. “I tried, but the light didn’t work so I couldn’t see anything. Why would she put his ashes in there?”
My father was insistent that was where his father’s ashes were. They had to be there, he told us. At the time, it seemed like desperation. One last desperate plea for us to try again.
How would we refuse?
We returned to our posts once more, reinvigorated with the hope that this time we would find him. This time we would bring him home.
My mother climbed back through the window, flashlight in hand, and made a beeline for the linen closet.
“Look for a purple bag.” my father instructed her through the walkie-talkie.
I could hear my mother exhaling a shaky breath through the crackle of the radio. “There’s so much junk in here, James. If a rat bites me, I swear to God–” Her breath hitched, and she paused a moment, clearing her throat before speaking again.
“I see something.”
All of us held our breath as time screeched to a halt.
“I see… a gold tassel,” she said quietly. The disbelief in her voice was clear, even through the radio’s interference. We heard movement as my mother rummaged through what we’d later find out was a mountain of purses and knock-off designer bags. There was a beat of silence after the noise ceased.
“Jen?” my father breathed into the walkie-talkie. I’d never heard him speak so softly before. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears, and I remember my heartbeat thundering in my chest as we all waited on bated breath for my mother to speak.
“I found him.”
The words hit me like a wave. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and tears welled in my eyes. I felt lightheaded, dizzy with relief. For a moment, I thought maybe I’d imagined it, that she would come out empty-handed again.
But no, she’d found him.
We’d done it. We had actually done it.
And yet, standing there on that roof, something heavy settled in my chest. We were thieves. We were robbers. Everything I thought I knew about right and wrong had collapsed around me in a single afternoon.
And it wasn’t over yet.
❧
Phase three. My mother began her second search, looking frantically for a container to move his ashes into. We knew we couldn’t take the container from the funeral home on the off chance they wanted to take him out of that closet someday. All my mother could find in that nasty house was an empty Blue Bonnet margarine tub. Given the circumstances, that would have to suffice.
Using a red solo cup, oddly commemorative to my Papa Joe’s love of beer, my mother carefully transferred the ashes into the margarine tub. Unfortunately, not all of his ashes would fit, so my sweet mother decided to leave some of him behind. In her words, she left behind the only part of my Papa Joe that Marlene deserved—his ass.
After filling the margarine tub, she moved quickly, scooping ashes from the stove into the original container just as my uncle had joked all those years ago. She put the container of stove ashes back in the closet and piled all the bags back onto the shelves. Once the closet was back to its original disorder, she collected that precious tub of margarine and climbed back out the window where my father practically squeezed the life out of her.
Back at the old house my mother relayed what she had done, and we all deliberated how we were going to tell the family about our successful heist. Fortunately, before we left the house, a call came in from my great-grandmother, inviting us to a family dinner while our extended family was in town. It was as if the stars had aligned, and the powers-that-be knew that we would find him that day.
We piled into the car to head home with the margarine tub placed squarely between my brother and I in the backseat, like a strange little centerpiece. As we sat there, his ashes cradled safely in the confines of that little butter tub, I could almost hear him laughing. The absurdity of it all began to wash away the sense of dread that had been looming over me since I climbed on that roof. We’d actually gotten away with it. We’d stolen him away and hidden him in a margarine tub of all things.
As if the spirit of the old codger had possessed me, I broke the silence as we drove, imitating my grandfather to the best of my ability and grumbling, “It smells like butter in here.” The gut-busting laughter that filled the car made my heart swell for the second time that day. I finally saw my parents light up with a joy I hadn’t seen since my grandfather was the one cracking terrible jokes.
❧
The next night at my grandmother’s house I was filled with an anxious energy that dwarfed all that I had felt the day before. Knowing we were about to drop an unbelievable bomb on our loved ones had all of us practically vibrating with anticipation. Being the loudmouth I was at that age, I seem to recall nearly spilling the beans early in my excitement, and as such, was put into a “no talking” time-out until the reveal.
Needless to say, my great-grandmother was confused when my father told her we had a gift for her only to be handed a room temperature tub of margarine after dinner was over.
“What am I looking at, James?” she asked him after opening the container and being greeted by what looked like a plastic tub full of dirt.
No one said a word, the only people knowing exactly what she was looking at being my parents, my brother, and myself. It was then that my father took out a picture and handed it to her. My mother—the perfectionist she is—had taken a picture of the ID tags and label that had been with my grandfather’s remains.
My great-grandmother’s eyes began to widen as she realized what, or who rather, she was holding. She began to weep, clutching the container to her chest. “You brought him back to me!” she wailed. “You brought my son home to me!”
It was then that the lightbulb flicked on for the rest of the family. Their eyes widened in shock and relief as many of their hands clapped over their mouths in disbelief.
We had done it. We had given our family, and most importantly my great-grandmother, peace. I knew it meant a lot to my father to get Papa Joe back, but we never would have done what we had if not for my great-grandmother. She could rest easy now knowing we could fulfill her son’s final wishes.
And we did.
❧
That year, on my grandfather’s birthday, my father arranged for a pilot to fly him, his sister, and my little brother over the ranch where my Papa Joe had grown up. I and the rest of my family stayed below on the ranch in my grandfather’s favorite spot—a campground on the property where he would always bring us to talk, laugh, and, usually, throw back a few too many beers.
We watched the plane fly overhead and saw an unmistakable cloud of ash spill from the plane window. Many of us cried, cheered, or some combination of the two as we toasted his memory with that very same cheap beer he loved so much. I myself was trying desperately to do either one as I choked down the bitter taste of my first beer.
That was fifteen years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. None of us have spoken a word about it to anyone outside the family. There was a quiet understanding between us, something we shared that no one else could know. It bound us together. Sometimes it felt like a weight we all carried. Even now, when we’re together, we never mention it out loud. But every now and then, I’ll catch my mother looking at margarine tub, and I know she’s thinking about that day too.
As far as we know, Marlene is still blissfully ignorant and believes my grandfather is still tucked away in the back of that linen closet. That day was the last time any of us saw the old house. Occasionally we’ll see Marlene, Kyle, and Trina, and make a substantial effort to ensure they don’t see us. Even without what we did hanging over our heads, our avoidance of them would still occur, I think. They hurt us, our entire family, a family that was once theirs too.
I don’t feel guilty. Perhaps I should, but I don’t now. At the time, I didn’t know what to feel, and that was the case for many years as I processed what we had done. There are a million ways I could justify why our actions that day were necessary, but it doesn’t change the fact we committed a crime. But it wasn’t petty theft. It wasn’t robbery for the sake of something as trivial as money. Bringing him home was a promise—a way to set things right and reclaim what had been stolen from us. We all knew we couldn’t leave him there any longer, even if they were his family once too.
I realize that to them what we did was cruel. I realize that if they ever took his remains out of that closet to properly mourn him that they would be mourning over a tin filled with ashes from a stove. I get no satisfaction from that, but I also don’t feel bad about it either. Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe it makes all four of us bad people. But not all grown-ups are good people.
Maybe it makes my family and me criminals. Maybe it means that we’re bad guys and we deserve to go to jail for breaking the law.
Maybe I don’t care what it makes us.
Maybe I believe that I’ll get to see my Papa Joe again one day. And maybe when I do, he’ll say thank you, probably followed by some terrible joke about coming out of the closet or how bad that tub we put him in smelled.
Maybe that makes it okay.
Chase Reed is a junior at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, New Mexico, double majoring in English Writing and Graphic Design, and pursuing a graduate degree in English Literature. “Grand Theft Ashes” is her first ever published work. Chase aspires to be a fiction writer, but she also enjoys the challenges of academic writing and works as a tutor at WNMU’s Writing Center.
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