She Was Tall, Blonde, and Had a Face Like Italian Screen Actress Sophia Loren...

Tony Vaccaro. Getty Images.

There is truth beyond the grave. Things that were once well-kept secrets in life can suddenly be revealed through documentation, cell phone records, or by someone in the know who's willing to share, and long after you're gone.

I know a guy whose wife died suddenly, and her text message history revealed a private life of sexual fantasy with multiple partners he knew nothing about. That she was able to keep it a secret for as long as she did is, at the very least, shocking. After reading everything, he was left feeling empty and confused about their relationship, which he believed was solid.

The cell phone has become the most revealing tool in exposing truth beyond the grave, but people who come forward and tell their stories, with no reason other than to come clean, can be just as damning.

Recently, I had an 'aha moment' when I received a call from one of my father's former co-workers. I'm not even sure how he got my mobile number. He said he'd been reading my blog and had information he wanted to share with me about my father. He wanted to meet and set the record straight.

At first, I thought he was after something monetary, but he wasn't. He wanted me to know some truths that, up to that point, had been well-kept secrets that, unbeknownst to me, played a significant role in my life.

My wife was fighting for her life at the time, and I was her caregiver, so I had little interest in acting on his offer to meet.

Months after my wife passed, I replayed his message and became curious. What could this guy tell me that I didn't know?

I called him and we spoke for a few minutes. He told me he worked with my father back in the '70s and that they became friends. He had to get off, so we decided we'd find a time to grab lunch and talk further. It appeared that he wanted to tell me these things face-to-face and not over the phone.

A few weeks ago, he called to say he was gonna be in my area, and asked if we could meet for lunch. I was more than willing.

We ended up at Magwire's Bar & Grill in Easton, one of my and Susan's favorite spots. It was an unusually warm day in October, so we were able to sit at a table in the outdoor dining area that made its first appearance during the Pandemic. Because of its popularity, it remained.

After some initial small talk, he came right out and boldly said, "Your father didn't treat your mother right-"

I immediately asked, "Did he hit her?"

"No," he said. "But he cheated on her- a lot."

I had long suspected that my father was anything but monogamous. I once accused him of having an affair with his attractive Colombian-born secretary in Hialeah while I was working there. She was tall, blonde, had a face like Italian screen actress Sophia Loren, and came into work every day with her 2-year-old son. When my father went on a 'business trip', she mysteriously didn't show up at the office… 

First, I spoke to Eddie, a skilled pattern maker who had become my father's business partner. He had recently left his wife of twenty-five years for a woman half his age, a move that shocked many people. Eddie was a lot of things, but an attractive man was not one of them. He did a lot of tap dancing around my allegation, but he didn't deny it. I went to my mother with it, and she nervously laughed, dismissing it as a "far-fetched idea."

When my father returned from his business trip, I confronted him, and he adamantly denied it. However, only days later, he fired me and my friend Moose, putting us in the unemployment line.

Years later, I was working in New Bedford as a plumber when a random guy came up to me and said he knew my twin brother. When I told him I didn't have a twin brother, he laughed. "I know a dude who looks identical to you. I really thought you were him…" My father had sweatshops, and the only women who could stitch garments were either from Fall River or New Bedford. As a young kid, I went with him to meet some of them. Looking back, there's a good chance I have some half-brothers and sisters whose mothers were talented seamstresses…

While we enjoyed the fresh air and ate cheeseburgers and fries, the guy told me that my father was his mentor and direct supervisor. They had become such good friends that he invited him and my mother to his wedding. He and my father were close. This guy wasn't just an acquaintance.

He said that the group he worked with at this company occasionally went out after hours, and when they did, they started bumping into a young, attractive blonde woman named Sally. She was much younger than my father, and each time the two of them acted as if it were a coincidence. But after it happened several times, it became apparent that it was not a coincidence. It was a planned rendezvous complete with an alibi. 

He told me that my father frequently left with her. Having seen that, along with other married men who did the same, his opinion of the garment business changed, and he got out. The middle-aged men going through midlife crisis in the garment business were like mob bosses with goomahs. Madmen, all of them!

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When I was 14, I was living with my parents in Norwich, Connecticut. My freshman year at NFA (Norwich Free Academy) had been great. I was captain of the freshman football team, played JV regularly, and was scheduled to dress for the last varsity game until an injury prevented it. I was the starting catcher on the freshman baseball team and had a great season both behind and at the plate. I had great friends and girlfriends. Life was good. Then my father announced that he was leaving his job, taking a job in New York, and moving my mother and me back to Sharon, Massachusetts. I pleaded with him not to, pointing out how happy we were in Norwich. But he put the house up for sale and moved us back to Sharon anyway. He said my mother would be closer to family and friends.

At first, he spent a week in New York and came home on the weekend. Then he said that was too much traveling, so he decided to spend two weeks in New York before coming home for the weekend. I was 15 and I needed my father at home full-time.

My life went into a downward spiral. The football coach in Sharon didn't like me, and I almost quit the team several times. In retrospect, I should have. That's when I started drinking and drugging. My mother spent her evenings alone in what was the prime of her life, while my father 'worked' in New York.

Before we swallowed the last bites of our cheeseburgers, this guy told me my father never worked in New York. He said Sally lived in Kenmore Square, and my father spent all his time there…

On his deathbed, my father told my mother that the one thing he wished was different was his relationship with me. Some nerve! He had no fucking right to say that. Anything that happened between him and me was his doing, and his alone. 

In addition to dealing with grief after losing my wife and the extreme loneliness that followed, I'm now confronted with processing the actions of my father, which, after 50 years, have finally come to light, exposing him as a cheater and a liar. 

Finding out the truth beyond the grave can make things worse, but it's still better than going to your grave not knowing…

Liar, liar, did you buy her
Whiskey all night long?
Did you hide your ring in the pocket of your jeans
Or did you just keep it on? 

*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental…