Long Bright River(92)

The last time we saw him, he took us to the Philadelphia Zoo. It was supposed to be a treat for us; we’d never been. We knew for weeks ahead of time that he was taking us there. I told Kacey not to get her hopes up.

He did show up, but what I mainly remember about the day is that he wore a pager that kept going off, and that he looked nervous every time it did. We saw some giraffes and then we saw some gorillas and then he said we had to leave.

—But we just got here, Kacey said, furious. We haven’t even seen the turtles.

Our father looked confused.

I knew why Kacey wanted to see the turtles: it was because our neighbor, Jimmy Donaghy, had made fun of her once for never having seen one. An arbitrary thing, casual cruelty, just an easy way to tease Kacey. I don’t remember now how it came up between them, but there it was: Kacey wanted to see a turtle so she could tell Jimmy Donaghy she’d seen one.

—Aw, Kace, said our father. I don’t even know if they have turtles here.

—They do, said Kacey, emphatically. They definitely do.

Our father glanced around. Well, I have no idea where they are, he said, and we have to leave.

His pager was buzzing and buzzing. He looked at it.

The drive home was silent. I let Kacey ride up front, for once. Our father dropped us at Gee’s house and she opened the door for us, her mouth set, as if she’d been expecting this.

—That was fast, she said, smugly.



* * *



—

A week later a package arrived at the doorstep. In it were two stuffed animals: a turtle for Kacey, a gorilla for me. I was careless with mine, and lost it almost immediately. Kacey kept hers, carried it with her everywhere, even to school. She might still have it, for all I know.

We never again heard from him, after that. Gee made it seem as if she didn’t, either. She told us with frequency that she should really take him to court for child support, but she didn’t have the time or money for a thing like that. She was too busy trying to keep a roof over our heads, she said, to go after our good-for-nothing father for the pennies he could afford to pay her.

After he disappeared, we spent our teenage years avoiding discussion of him. We never wanted to get Gee started on him. We’d never hear the end of it. Once or twice, I heard rumors from neighbors or relatives regarding his whereabouts: Wilmington, Delaware, was the consensus. He’d gotten another girl pregnant there. Two more. He had six other kids, I heard once. He was in jail, I heard a lot.

He was dead, I heard later.

When I heard that one, I searched for him online. There it was: a death record for a Daniel Fitzpatrick from Philadelphia, born the same year as our father. But I did not know the day of his birth, and I didn’t ask Gee, who probably wouldn’t have known it herself.

Still, I assumed it was him.

I never told Kacey. I started to, many times, but I couldn’t bear to break the news to her. I suppose I believed, on some level, that our father was one of the few glowing embers of goodness that existed in Kacey’s life, a perennial secret hope, just out of sight. Something to live for, in other words. Someone to make proud. I didn’t want to take that from her. I didn’t want that small light to go out.





My GPS brings me to a small house: the right side of a brick duplex across from the Riverview Cemetery. It’s a decent-looking structure, in good shape. Both halves are decorated for Christmas. The right half has electric candles in the windows and a plastic Christmas tree on the front porch. It’s seven at night now, and it’s been dark for hours.

I park on the street, fifty feet away, and turn off my car. As soon as I kill my headlights, the road becomes impossible to see. The only light comes from the windows of the houses, the Christmas decorations they bear.

I sit for a while. I turn back to look at the house in question. Face front. Turn back.

Could my father live inside that house? It’s hard for me to reconcile my last memory of him with my ideas about the resident of 1025B Riverview Drive.

After five minutes, I get out of my car and close the door, careful not to slam it. I walk over the ice patches that dot the road, slipping once. Then the darkness becomes overwhelming, and I feel the presence of the graveyard behind me, and I quicken my pace.

I walk up the four front steps of the house. I ring the bell and then take several steps back, waiting on the porch. I think of all the other times in my life, in my career, that I’ve knocked at houses whose residents weren’t expecting me. Out of habit, I keep my hands by my sides, in sight of whomever opens the door.

There is a faint rustle at the window to my right: a curtain being pushed aside and then dropped back into place.

A moment later, a girl answers, a young teenager. She’s skinny, with black curly hair and glasses. My immediate impression of her is that she is shy and studious, perhaps somewhat nervous around strangers. She looks me over.

She says nothing. Waits for me to speak.

Suddenly it feels absurd to assume that my father still lives at an address that was his so long ago. In my experience, it’s Gee’s generation that has stayed rooted in place, still living in the homes they grew up in. Our parents’ generation is transient.

So it is with a certain amount of embarrassment that I begin.

—Hello there, I say to the girl. I’m sorry to disturb you. I was wondering if Daniel Fitzpatrick lived here.