Most people think of my dad as a quiet but charismatic man, someone who is always there, solid, good, but not prone to big outbursts of laughter. And definitely not someone who would play pranks.
I, however, knew better. In the privacy of his own home or when with close friends, my dad had a wild and silly streak. Once, when I had friends at our house for a sleepover, Dad spent almost an hour making scratching sounds against the wall and then hiding when we went to look for him. By the time he finally revealed himself and the hand rake in his closet next door, my friends were convinced that there was a ghost in our house and were about to call their parents to go home. He loves telling that story, even now, thirty years later.
So when the gossip network of St. Marin’s reached me, I knew
