A secret remains a secret until you make someone promise never to reveal it.
~Fausto Cercignani

Monday night! I’ve had a pretty awful day at work and a worse forty-five-minute-turned-seventy-minute commute home. After eating something cold out of the fridge, showering and getting in my jammies, I’m just in time to watch Everybody Loves Raymond. Feet up on my couch, I’m in for the night. The phone rings.

“Yes?” I answer, barely taking interest.

“You need to come over.” It’s my dad.

“I’ll be right there.”

“It’s nothing bad,” he adds.

“Then I’m not coming; my show’s on.” Raymond and Robert argue in the background. Yes, I’m recording it, but I intend to stay planted.

“You’ve got to come. It’s good news. And don’t tell anyone that you’re coming.”

“Dad, I’m not going anywhere. I’m already showered and in my pajamas.”

“You have to come.”

My very cute, very Italian parents, who reside six minutes from the first condo of their only daughter, frequently have insignificant emergencies. Today they have caught me on strike from the world. “You’re going to have to tell me what’s up or I’m not budging.”

A sigh… “Your mom won the lottery.”

“A lot of money?”

“A lot! But don’t tell anyone!”

“Okay,” I say, “I’ll get dressed. And who am I going to tell?”

Driving the six minutes to my parents’ house, I contemplate getting rich before my soul mate materializes. How will I know if he’s interested in my money or me?

Getting to the house, I find my grandmother on the stairs with her walker, my uncle and aunt flanking her. “I’m so happy!” she says when she gets to the top, grabbing my hand and hugging me. This was the grandmother who never hugged.

A party is starting before my eyes. Everyone greets each other warmly like it’s been so long since Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house yesterday. All the liquor in the house is now on the kitchen counter. Most of the bottles, some still in boxes, have a layer of dust on them. My brother Jim grabs my hands and tries to lead me in a weird jig.

At the kitchen table, Mom writes a list. She has been allocating her lottery winnings. First on the list are the retired nuns. Retired Nuns? Where did that come from? Second, she intends to pay off Jim’s car and my own; that’s fair, I think sarcastically. Jim’s car is a new sports car that he rolled off the lot last week; I’ve made about 180 of 350 payments on my far more practical used car, but whatever.

Suddenly, I remember a friend who said a prayer for my mom in Rome. Prior to his trip, he had collected everyone’s intentions and was praying throughout his sabbatical. He’d told my mom that when he’d actually seen the pope waving from a distance, all he could think of was “Marie Farella’s special intention.” She’d beamed when he’d told her that.

“Mom,” I ask, “was this the special intention you’d asked Ron to pray for you in Rome?”

She looks down, blushing and smiling. Guilty as charged.

“Well, I’m happy for you!”

I hear my father announce that he has called the state lottery number, but they don’t know that there’s a winner yet. That doesn’t sound right. I walk over to look at the ticket on the counter. Next to it is the newspaper, open to yesterday’s winning numbers.

Uncle John is leaning over it, matching the numbers. I hear his brain wheels turning. Looking over his shoulder, I stare at the newspaper and the ticket in turn. Stupidly, I hear myself ask, “Wait, could she have won more than one lottery? These all seem to match yesterday’s. All the winning numbers match for each type of lottery.”

He snaps out of it. Grabbing the ticket, he looks to my mom. “Wait! This is the slip from the gas station! The one they print out when you ask for yesterday’s winning numbers. Where’s your lottery ticket from yesterday, Marie?”

Mom looks like she’s been slapped. Reality hits the entire room. Mom looks for her purse. When she returns with the actual lottery ticket that she’d purchased, it has only three matching numbers. Everyone has been reveling in the winning numbers on the print-out given to her today by the cashier at the gas station, which displays the winning numbers from yesterday and looks very much like a lottery ticket. We all look at her dumbfounded. Ours for only minutes, the treasure is gone.

“You ruin everything!” my brother yells at me. All of this is suddenly my fault. New dust gathers on the champagne and the other bottles. The celebration ends. No nuns, no car payments, no special intention prayer to the pope answered. We are middle-class-broke once again.

We all look to my mother. She sits at the kitchen table, completely deflated. “Promise me,” she calls to us all, “you will never, ever tell anyone about this.”

— Gina Farella Howley —