As I get out of the car, something sad shudders through me, indistinct but clear. It’s been years since I’ve been here, but this is the stop where Anna and I would get off the Harlem-Hudson Line when we came to visit Dad and Joanne before they moved to London—the stop where we learned not to expect to see more of our father than the short car ride to and from the Burkes’ house.
We cross the tracks and find a bench overlooking the Hudson. The river is shrugging off the last of winter, stretching itself awake for spring. I watch a large branch moving downstream, pulled by the slow, heavy current. My father fishes his old Swiss Army Knife out of his pocket, pries out the bottle opener, and opens his beer. I’ve always loved his knife—its hidden treasures: the teensy pair of scissors, the nail file, the doll-sized saw. He pulls out the large blade and begins peeling a ripe pear in a tight, precise spiral.
“Why did we stop staying with the Burkes, Dad?”
“Because I wanted my girls with me.”
“Then why did you always leave us there?”
“Well,” he says, “that was Joanne.” He slices off a piece of pear and offers it to me on the blade of the knife. “Careful. That blade is sharper than it looks. There’s a hunk of Muenster in the bag.”
With my father, everything is always someone else’s fault.
“Have I ever told you the story of how I got this scar?” He holds up his thumb. Leans in. A dramatic pause. My father doesn’t tell stories, he performs them. Narrates. Puffs up like a frigate bird, red and barrel-chested. Waits for his audience to settle in. Usually, when he’s repeating a story, I pretend I’ve never heard it before. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. But right now all I want to do is pinprick him. Deflate him. Yes, you’ve told it to me about twenty times.
“Pop gave me this knife when I turned ten. Told me knives were for men, not boys—to use it with respect. I cut my thumb wide open the very first time I used it. Trying to pry the cap off a bottle of cola with that same blade. Had to get twelve stitches. Blood all over the damn shop. Like a jugular vein. Pop took the knife away for a year. Told me he’d made a grave error. Said a boy who can’t tell the difference between a bottle opener and a blade was just masquerading as a man. That was a powerful lesson.” Behind him, a train slows to approach the station, heading south. “Your grandfather taught me to whittle, you know. And to shoot straight. Do you remember that little wooden turtle I made for you?”
I shake my head no, though it is on the shelf above my bed, where it always is. I hand my father the cheese, take a sandwich from the picnic bag. I pull off the top slice of bread. It is stained wet with pink tomato juice. One by one, I pick off the seeds, flick them into the grass. On the river, a sailboat fights the current.
* * *
—
We pull into the Burkes’ circular gravel driveway at two on the dot.
“Perfect timing,” Dad says, pleased with himself.
A chocolate Lab is lying on the front porch, napping in a patch of sun. It ambles over, rubs against my father’s leg, then stands there motionless, as if that simple gesture has left it stunned.
“Hello, old girl,” Dad says, patting her. “You remember Cora?” he asks me.
“The puppy?”
“She’s an ancient lady now. Dog years.” He knocks on the door. “Hello-o?” he calls out. “Nancy? Dwight? Anybody home?” But there is only the silent house. “Nancy’s car is here. She must be gardening out back.” He opens the front door and we let ourselves in.
Everything is exactly as I remember it: the shiny brass tongs and cinder scoop for ashes leaning against the white brick fireplace. The WASPy threadbare wingbacks, worn Persian rug. A vase of garden peonies sits on the coffee table, loose petals strewn over art books.
“Hello, hello?” Dad calls out, again. I follow him into the kitchen. The Mr. Coffee has been left on, giving off the faint sour odor of burnt coffee. My father turns off the machine, holds the glass pot under the tap. It hisses and steams as water hits the caramelized ring, tinting the water brown.
“She’s not in the garden. They must be out for a walk. I’ll start bringing my boxes down from the attic. Go have a look at your old room.”
“Maybe we should wait. It feels like we’re trespassing.”
“The Burkes are family, Joanne or no Joanne.”
The hidden door that leads to our room is open. I pause halfway up the wooden staircase on the landing where Anna and I used to sit and play with our dolls, before heading upstairs. Nothing has changed—the same flowered pillowcases we used when I was six, the same lace doilies on the bureaus. Dotted swiss bedspreads. I picture Frank’s agonized face, the day we found his hamster Goldie squashed behind Anna’s bed. The way he cried. His high-pitched gurgle. Sun streams in through the mullioned windows. Above the dour rock face, the sky is brilliant. Nancy’s rhododendrons are in bloom. Nothing has changed, and yet now our old room feels sad and hollow, one-dimensional—like a stage set for a happy childhood, which, when you look behind it, reveals itself to be false walls and empty spaces. Suddenly all I want is to be with my father.