When I was young, it was my father’s job on Sundays to get me bathed and dressed for church. He was a kind and gentle man, with a wicked sense of humor, but my fidgeting and total lack of an attention span would occasionally wear on him as he tried to get a squirming boy into a suit.

One morning, he paused and said he needed me to stay still and pay attention so I didn’t end up like my brother. Confused, I said that I didn’t have a brother. He agreed that I didn’t have a brother … any more. I, of course, fell into the trap and asked what had happened to my brother.

As he pulled on one of my socks, he casually explained that my brother just wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t sit still, so my father “yanked his arm off and beat him to death with the bloody stump.”

At that point, he had my full attention, and I’ll bet my fidgeting had completely stopped. I was dressed in record time, and off our family went to church, with a quiet little boy in the back seat silently contemplating the world that had just been revealed to him. I’m sure that my father was having a great laugh on the inside as we drove along.

All was well until the drive home, when I finally asked my parents in the front seat why they had never told me about my dead brother. My father’s shoulders began to hunch, and he slunk down in his seat as my mother’s gaze swung toward him. Still looking at him, she asked me softly what my father had told me.

It was a long, quiet ride home that day.