Brinley Street

My father went to work everyday.

Every day. Seven days a week. Even on holidays sometimes. Sometimes my mother would yell at him. Sometimes she didn’t bother. He’d ask her if she liked our house. Our nice house in a nice neighborhood on a beautiful island. A paradise. Even if in the winter it felt like a hollowed out stuffed animal. Still fun to look at, but not much to hold. Safety and good schools. I took French lessons. Really, I did. French lessons. Back then, that was all middle class. It didn’t mean you were rich. I never thought we were rich, but I knew there’d always be food on the table and presents on my birthday and I knew I’d never be unsure of anything.

Dad goes to work.

Dad comes home.

Did I know what Dad did for work? No, I didn’t. Who knows what their father does when he’s not a doctor or a dentist? You picture an office. You picture a secretary. You picture him moving papers around on a desk. That’s what fathers do when you’re seven and eight and as you get older, it all locks in whether it makes sense or not.

My father was home every day at 6:03. If you needed him before 6:03, you were out of luck. I thought that’s how it was for all the fathers. I didn’t ask my friends about it. You don’t know what you don’t know. There was one day in school when my teacher had us go around and say what our parents did. When they got to me, I said my mom was a homemaker and my father wears a tie. The other kids laughed. I didn’t know what was funny about that, but it didn’t make me ask questions. It didn’t make me wonder. They went to the next kid. He said his father was a police officer. Maybe I felt a little strange, but maybe I didn’t. It’s hard to remember.

It’s hard when you start getting the feeling that remembering wouldn’t be in your best interest.

We had a house on Brinley Street. Our neighbors were the Tomasetti’s, the Leone’s, the Kirk’s, and the Gallagher’s. One time, somebody broke into the Tomasetti’s house while they were home and tied them up in the living room. They took their tv, some cash, all of Mrs. Tomasetti’s jewelry, and then they drove off in their car. That kind of thing never happened on the island. It was safe. I remember Mr. Tomasetti coming over when it was all done to talk to my father. I don’t remember the police showing up. I don’t remember anybody taking a statement from the Tomasetti’s. I remember my mother standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes like everything was fine. Like people got robbed and tied up all the time. Like it was normal for the people across the street to wait two hours before they started screaming so somebody would come untie them. I remember Mr. Tomasetti talking to my father, and my father leaving for work the next day. He left every day at 8:58 on the dot. That night, somebody dropped off the Tomasetti’s car, the jewelry, double the cash, and a brand new tv. Whenever I’d walk past the Tomasetti’s house, if Mr. Tomasetti was out mowing the lawn, he’d tell me to say hi to my father. He’d say that my father was a good man. The best.

When my mother died, I asked my father if he wanted to move closer to me. I was living outside of Boston back then, but eventually I moved back to the island. My father never left, and he never stopped going to work. When Mom died, he took two days off, and then he was putting on the tie again. Getting in the car. Going over the bridge. The Tomasetti’s were long gone. So were the Leone’s and the Gallagher’s. People move. It’s what they do. I was in Boston teaching 9th grade Algebra. I never asked the kids what their fathers did for a living. I never thought it was my business. Sometimes my brothers would mention it. Dad still going to work. I’d shut it down. Let him go to work. He likes to work.  What else was he going to do? Sit in the house all day?

Six or seven years after my mother passed, my father took a fall getting into his car one morning in January. I went down to take care of him until he was back on his feet. I remember the doctors telling me he’d never be back on his feet. He didn’t take care of himself. My mother did her best, but once she was gone, he ate too much of all the wrong things. He let himself go. The fall was just the icing on the cake. The doctors said he’d need constant supervision, and they recommended I put him in a home. We didn’t do that in my family. When your parents became too sick to take care of themselves, they moved in with you. My father wouldn’t leave the island. Forget about the fact that he’d leave every day to go to work. He wouldn’t live anywhere but Brinley Street. Whenever I’d mention him coming back with me, I’d see this look in his eyes. I’d never seen it on my father before, so it took me a second, but then I realized what it was.

It was fear.

He was afraid.

I thought it was all about change. People fear change. Especially old people. Especially old people who’ve done the same thing their whole lives. I remember thinking that must be it. He’s just an old man who doesn’t want to be a burden to his daughter. Who doesn’t want to say goodbye to his home and his street even if all his neighbors are gone and his wife is gone and his sons won’t come visit him, because when they were bad, he’d come home at 6:03 and beat the hell out of them. He wouldn’t hit me, because I was a girl. My father had principles. If I was bad, I got a slap across the face. That was it. I remember thinking a slap isn’t the same thing as a beating. I remember thinking it was nothing. Maybe I didn’t think that at the time. Hard to say.

After I’d been home for a week, sleeping on the couch in the living room, watching tv with Dad day in and day out, there was a knock at the door. Who would be knocking at the door? It was the middle of the day. Almost 2pm. Who would be knocking on the door at 2pm? I looked at my Dad. He was just looking at the tv. The Price Is Right was on. That’s what my dad wanted to watch. I asked him if he was expecting anybody. He didn’t even look at me. Another knock. I got up. I went to the door. I opened it. There was a man standing there.

A man in a suit and tie.

The man asked if my father was home. I asked the man for his name. He asked me again if my father was home. He had a close shave. Big, brown eyes. Thin lips. I remember his breath smelled like gas station coffee and expensive cigarettes. His teeth looked white, so maybe he wasn’t a smoker. I don’t know. I was going to ask him for his name again, but my father yelled to me to give the man the keys. The keys? What keys?  The keys to his car were on the table next to the front door. I looked at them. I should have asked more questions. I should have gone to my father and asked who this man was. Why would I give him the keys to the car? What was going on?

I don’t know why, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask more questions. I picked up the keys, and I handed them to the man. He didn’t say anything. He just walked over the grass to the driveway. My father’s car was parked there. Nobody had touched it since his fall. The man got into it like he’d been getting into it every day. The car started. The man drove away. I closed the door. I went back to the couch and sat down. Somebody on the tv was guessing that a crockpot would only cost twenty dollars. Could a crockpot be that cheap? That seemed crazy. I remember thinking it was crazy.

My father never went back to work.

My father never left the house again.

I never asked him what he did for work.

When he died, I went through all his belongings, and the only clue I found was a photo of him sitting on a park bench by himself. I don’t know who took the photo. On the back was the word “Paul.”

My father’s name is William.

Who the hell is Paul?